Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print. — Additional clarification for this episode. I’m not the best with Hebrew and so I may have errors there—please let me know where and when I’ll correct them.
Rabbi Tarlow 0:00
I taught many years, a course at Texas a&m in Biblical philosophy and my students would always say to me, which translation should we bring? And I would say, I don't care because they're all wrong. It doesn't matter. And that's not because the translator is a liar. So in Italian, you do say, to translate it to be treasonous. It's because you cannot take the Hebrew text and translate it into English. So people who are really interested need to take the time to learn the text and how it sets up the world and take the text for what it is, not for what you want to be. So my advice is really, with all due respect to the English Bible, is to learn Hebrew.
Seth Price 0:54
Welcome to the show. Happy Veterans Day. At least I think this will release on Veterans Day and if it didn't, I'm leaving that in and I hope that you had a great Veterans Day anyway. So last week, I had committed to trying to figure out how to make the logo and artwork work on a hat. And I haven't figured that out yet. And so I'm sorry, still plan to get that done before Christmas. And there's been a recent uptick in people over at the store grabbing different things, head over there. CanISaythis@church.com/store and see if there's anything that you'd like to other ways that you can support the show, you can go in the show notes to Glow FM or to patreon.com tried glow last week, we'll see how it goes. It literally is something new, so we're going to give it a go. Because back in the day, PayPal didn't work. But Patreon is where it's at. So I'm beginning to try to do writing. And I'm posting those thoughts there. You get early access to the episodes, all kinds of different things happening over there. Love that community it is by far one of my favorite places. I would encourage you if the show is helping you. You're hearing anything that you like, if you hate this show, but you still want it to continue. Go over to that Patreon there at CanISay thisatchurch.com, click support or Patreon, I forget what it's called exactly, and click that button. Any dollar amount really does help for the show to continue to grow. And because the show does continue to grow, I cannot express my gratitude enough that those supporters are there, literally the engine that drives the show.
So today, I am joined by two guests. And those are always fun, because they're really hard to edit and it's hard to bounce back and forth. And I'm gonna have one of the guests back on, because I have so much more questions about her story, where she's coming from. She has a beautiful story, and I want to dig further into it. But you will hear from both Nora Speakman (now Sophia) and Rabbi Peter Tarlow, and we cover a lot of ground we talked about the fact that I need to learn Hebrew, and you probably should to. We talk about translation and living in an empire. We talked a bit about having multiple jobs and wearing multiple hats and the stress of that. We talked about deconstruction we really talked about a lot love this conversation. I think you will as well. Let me know what you think when you're done listening to it. Here we go.
Seth Price 3:12
Dr. Rabbi Peter Tarlow and Nora Speakman welcome both of you to the show. I don't often have two people at the same time. These are always fun. And they're a blast to edit usually as well. But welcome to you both.
Nora 3:25
Thank you. Thank you, Seth. We're excited to be with you.
Seth Price 3:29
Yeah, I am as well. I'd like to start out the way that I started out almost every episode and then Rabbi Tarlow, so you're the second Rabbi that I spoken with on the show, but probably a handful of rabbis that I've spoken with period, there's not a lot of rabbis, where I met here in the Blue Ridge Parkway. So it's good to speak to someone that can come from a different point of view, which I think is is rare.
Rabbi Tarlow 3:52
Thank you.
Seth Price 3:53
Tell us a bit about you. For those that are listening. They're like okay, so who is this person? What would you want people to know about you? What makes you tick? What makes you; you?
Rabbi Tarlow 3:56
Well, I'm probably your more unusual rabbi. I actually, I would say, I live a legally double life. But in reality, I live a life maybe five or six lives at the same time. I was a Rabbi at Texas A&M University for about 35 years at their Hillel Foundation, working with students. I'm also the chaplain at the College Station Police Department, which is kind of in the same area. I am also the chaplain at the federal prison in Bryan, Texas, where I work with a women's prison. And my main job is to encourage people not to come back to prison. And my PhD specialty is in tourism security and in protecting visitors when they travel. And last but not least, I'm a member of the faculty of Texas A&M Medical School.
Seth Price 5:00
What's your actual job? What do you really tell people if you only have 12 seconds in an elevator?
Rabbi Tarlow 5:04
I'm probably retired and I try to be a good husband and father and grandfather.
Seth Price 5:09
Fair enough, Nora, tell people a bit about you what makes you tick? How do you be the best you?
Nora 5:16
Rabbi keeps me in line. You know for me, Seth, honestly, Rabbi’s life, as he has shared of many hats. I'll never forget when I first met him, and asked him about all of these lives, and I said, “what do you do when you get stressed?” Remember, this conversation Rabbi?
Rabbi Tarlow 5:36
No, not really. Helped me. (Everyone laughs)
Nora 5:41
When I asked you, what do you do when you get stressed? You said, “I tell myself, I'm being so foolish because I have more to be grateful for.”
Rabbi Tarlow 5:50
That's true. I agree with myself. (Laughs more)
Nora 5:57
So he taught me, you know, I think that is, as Americans, and certainly in the realm of Christianity, there is a difference between, I feel like I want to do this and knowing what is the right thing to do; which is what Rabbi has taught me through the beautiful branch of Judaism.
Seth Price 6:18
So you would call yourself a Jew or follower of Judaism? Sure.
Nora 6:23
Sure.
And, yes, but I would say that I was a Christian, if you want to say, “Christian”, for most of my life, and I will tell you that I learned more about what even that was through Rabbi Tarlow.
Seth Price 6:43
Hmm, let me defer to you there Rabbi. Well, actually, yeah I have some follow up questions from your intro there but I’ll get back to those.
So when you hear Nora say that, like, what does that mean? How can a Christian learn more about Christianity through a lens of Judaism?
Rabbi Tarlow 7:00
Well, really, to a great extent Christianity, pure Christianity, is part Judaism. It's only in the fourth century that Christianity split off and really took a facade of Judaism and mixed it with Greek policyism, to create sort of a new religion. But I can't believe Jesus would want to be a Christian, I would think he would want to be a Jew. He lived a Jewish life. He followed Jewish principles. If you go through what Christians call the New Testament all of the uplifting literature in there, it's really, from classical Judaism, be it from the midrashic literature, the Talmudic literature, or the Biblical literature. So it seems to me you really can't be a Christian, whatever that means, if you don't know your roots. It is kind of like saying, I want to be myself but I don't want to know who my parents were. (We all chuckle)
Seth Price 7:55
Well, I mean, I've been a kid before, and I think there's some honesty in that of I don't think anybody wants to hear the truth about what their parents were. Because I know as I get older, and I realize how much smarter my parents were, and also dumber in some places, and I'm sure I'll get there as well, I don't necessarily like those truths, if that makes any sense. So if we take that metaphor, and we break it closer to faith what do we do with those things when when it's extremely uncomfortable?
Rabbi Tarlow 8:23
We learn to live with them. My mother is almost 100 years old and it's very difficult there is a Jewish saying that people with a lot of vinegar live long, and she could be a vinegar factory. But that doesn't mean I get rid of her. It means that I had to learn to live with it, and try to figure out those things that makes me uncomfortable; why do they make me uncomfortable? And what is God's lesson in being uncomfortable and learning how to deal with it?
Seth Price 8:55
Follow up questions from your intro so I want to make sure I was writing everything down so Chaplain at College Station, Chaplain at Texas prison; you said female prison or just penal prison. I wasn't sure I heard that.
Rabbi Tarlow 9:06
Right. So I'm the police chaplain here in College Station, also one of the chaplains at the US federal prison, it's a camp, a prison camp, for a females in Bryan, Texas. I teach at our medical school, I lecture all over the world on tourism security. And I write books, and I was a Rabbi for many years here at Texas A&M University. And I taught in the Department of Sociology. So I tell people, most people are retirement (but) I'm in re-tired-ment with a D.
Seth Price 9:39
You're exhausted, you're exhausted, but you still do seven things. So you said you encourage people not to come back to prison. Do you find that you're successful as a chaplain in that role, or is that a fight against the ocean?
Rabbi Tarlow 9:51
Uh it depends. Some people it is successful. Some people it is a fight against the ocean. If you're successful then they’ve learned whatever lesson it is. They have taken something away from it and they have moved on to a new stage of their life. Those who've learned nothing often come back. Those who've learned something never come back.
Seth Price 10:15
So it is all about the lessons-or I guess, what do they call it, the goal of prison should not be to incarcerate but to educate. I think I've heard somebody say that somewhere and if not I made it up, but I don't think I did. I'm pretty sure those aren't my words.
Rabbi Tarlow 10:29
No, I'm pretty sure you right. Um, you know, the whole concept of prisons is there's many lessons that you could learn in a prison, how to get along with people you don't like. How to share food when you really would prefer not to. How to learn to be a little bit more humble. How to learn to find ways to use time creatively, when you have too much time. How not live a life that's basically the movie Groundhog Day where every day is the same. So, lessons are not only books, but they're also life. And you have to be smart enough to learn those lessons
Seth Price 11:09
Nora question for you. So you graciously gave me some nice preface material for this evening. And in there, though, you said something that caused me to almost reply to the email with a question. And I realized why would I do this because I could just ask you without any ability to prepare ahead of time, because that's so nice of me. But you would you would said that one of the things was powerful for you is that, you know, as Rabbi has taught you how to not read the text forward, because you know the story and allow the text to stand on its own. And so I'd like to define both of those, like, what do you mean by that? And when you say text, are you talking about the Christian Bible, the Catholic Bible, the Jewish Bible, what are we talking about when we say “text”, and then what kind of what does that mean; not reading it forwar?.
Nora 11:55
So I think text for me can be anything in the becomes a road and for us, regardless of what version or what if you're following Buddhism, it doesn't matter. If we become so familiar that it becomes strictly a regurgitation of memory, then it's no longer feeding us anything. So I remember when I first met Rabbi, and I would say, you know in this story where Cain kills Abel and blah blah blah, and he's saying, “hold on”. He would say, go back to the context what are the lessons right in front of you without thinking because you know, the rest of the story? You know what happens next; you know the next chapter.
And so there's so much in that Seth, because if you study for example, the Hebrew text, the Torah, you would know that they don't have the same chapters that we do. We did that in Christianity to the Hebrew text. Theirs is a beautiful flow that makes more sense when you read it all together versus reading it the way we do quoting chapter and verse. It is more of a powerful narrative that is truly as it was supposed to be taught by oral tradition, not by memorizing it.
So, for example, in Genesis, it says that “God told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. We often will say “the fruit” because later Eve says “well he said not to take the fruit”. So there's so much wisdom in Okay, well, what is the tree? What does that represent in our life? And so this rabbinical understanding is, what do you think about it? And as rabbi said, with the Midrashic, every dialogue matters rather than having one absolute answer.
Seth Price 13:58
Rabbi, do you agree because she said that she got got that from you so I want to make sure that we're on the same page?
Rabbi Tarlow 14:03
No we are. I think there are two other basic things that would help. One: Hebrew is a verbal language, English is a static language.
So for example, the word “book” in English refers to something that static, the word sefer it means every time you open the page to get a different story. And so in Hebrew all nouns are verbs and that changes the entire way that you see things. To add to it we don't vocalize Hebrew text, which means that you can read each word multiple ways within context. And because there’s no punctuation it's kind of like reading a Garcia Marquez novel. You don't really know where that verse begins and ends, therefore, it's a never ending flow, which has story and story and story and story. So if you think you know you don't know it. It's only when you know you don't know it that you will be getting closer to beginning to know it.
Example, Nora spoke about the Tree of Life, while the word tree of knowledge, in Hebrew, unless you understand that the word yada means carnal knowledge. Well, that changes things. Or you need to ask the question, if God really didn't want you to eat of that tree why did He put it in the middle of the garden? Why didn’t he put it in a corner someplace where nobody would see it? Maybe the goal was to have a eat from it, because you don't really grow up until you have a sense of the ability to choose. And until you ate from that tree. You know what you had that inability you would be a child forever.
So what Eve is, in Hebrew, Eve is Havah. She is the first Liberator. She's the first one would you do to two key elements. One: the knowledge of everyday would not be the same. Remember I started work at a federal prison, a federal prison is paradise, they feed you, they take care of you, every day is the same there are no challenges. If we lived in that type of Paradise, we'd be in prison. But instead Eve got us out of it, and taught us something else. Without the gift of death you would never create. You'd be like my dog who sits by the swimming pool every day doing nothing. Because we know our time is limited we have to create and it is death that makes us partners with God.
Seth Price 16:41
I've read often that and I'm going to not use death I’ll use something different, without any death at all there's just no new life.
Rabbi Tarlow 16:54
Yes and Havah (Eve) means that which gives life.
Seth Price 17:02
What is a person today that doesn't read a scripture, any scripture, regardless of the religion as a scroll, or as an oral type tradition, like what am I supposed to do with the Bible sitting on my desk because I got seven or eight of them here? Like if the words and the syntax and the sentence structure was supposed to be more fluid, and it's not and the way that we train human beings to learn is two plus two is four. But in a Hebrew Scripture not written with syntax like that, I don't think that that would work. And I'm, maybe speak out of turn because I'm ignorant of this. How do I read in a better way?
Rabbi Tarlow 17:37
Learn Hebrew! (Everyone laughs)
Seriously, I taught many years, a course at Texas A&M, in Biblical philosophy. And my students would always say to me, “which translation should we bring”? And I would say, “I don't care because they're all wrong. It doesn't matter”. And that's not because the translator is a liar. So in Italian, you do say to translate is to be treasonous. It is because you cannot take the Hebrew text and translate it into English. So people who are really interested need to take the time to learn the text, and how it sets up the world. And take the text for what it is not for what you want it to be.
So my advice is really, with all due respect to English Bible, learn Hebrew. And many Christians are learning Hebrew because of that.
Seth Price 18:31
I know so much, little, Hebrew. I want to ask the Hebrew word, because to be honest, I didn't look it up. And I probably know what it means. So I'm going to spell it because Nora I don't know how to say this word. And if you want to say it Tzedakah. What does that mean? And then if either one of you could just break that apart a a bit.
Rabbi Tarlow 18:56
Tzedakah? (pronounces it)
Seth Price 18:57
Sure. Sure. Absolutely. I don't know how to say it.
Nora 18:58
Yes, Rabbi, I want you to explain it because it's beautiful.
Rabbi Tarlow 19:03
So first of all every Hebrew word comes from a three letter root. So you have to understand this. And so the root there is TDZ(or K) which means righteousness. Tzedakah is to be righteous by being charitable. So you cannot be righteous if you're not charitable. I know I have lots of friends that tell me “well I don't have to give charity because I pay taxes”. Ridiculous statement! A tax is what the government takes from you. But a charity is what you choose to give. But in Judaism the English word charity comes from the word that means a gift, something I want to do. And in Judaism to be charitable, is not what you want to do it's what you ought to do. It's the obligation of helping your fellow human being.
Seth Price 19:55
Nora, what would you add if anything to that?
Nora 19:58
I think that what I would add is that as I've learned from Rabbi and that is growing up in Christianity and understanding it. I don't know, it's that we put such a almost like you're supposed to be impoverished, especially if you're serving in ministry. I don't know where that comes from. But it seems like it feels like that's what is sort of presented. And I think that what I’ve gleaned from Rabbi is you have to be pragmatic with your finances, and it isn't to give everywhere you feel like it but I think it's knowing that if we all were to be aware of our fellow man and community, it we would be living out what it does say in Torah or Old Testament. And that is that we wouldn't have all of the issues in the labels, and all of this what do we do with the homeless kind of thing, because I think that people would take more responsibility across the board. Do you think that's true Rabbi as I'm describing it, or trying to?
Rabbi Tarlow 21:07
I think that tzedakah is not just giving a money. It's also giving of yourself. And lots of people give themselves in lots of ways.
But the reality is that the Earth was not made specifically for you it was made for all of us. And we need to learn to live with each other as much of the “we” as we are of the “I”.
Seth Price 21:30
Yes, I want to ask you a question that I've always wanted to ask a rabbi and since there's not one close, I've been unable to.
Rabbi Tarlow 21:36
You can alwasy call me, it's okay.
Seth Price 21:40
I will I've got your number now. I'm going to do it. So, for you, not necessarily for where you worship or for those that you have influence over, for you, what is your relationship to what Christians would call you Jesus Christ? And then bigger than that what Kind of the Jewish relationship to that because I don't get to have that talk all that often.
Rabbi Tarlow 22:05
Yeah, I get to these statements of if I asked you the question, what is your relationship to Buddha or Mohammed? You're coming out of a Christian perspective and so in your world, everything centers around Christianity. But in my world, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, they're all foreign religions. So just like you have no relationship, this does not mean you have anything to hurt, but you have no relationship to Mohammed, in the same way I have no relationship to Jesus.
Seth Price 22:38
Okay. I wasn't expecting that. But I like it, I just wasn’t expect the answers. I didn't have a follow up. It's one of those questions I've always wanted to ask.
Rabbi Tarlow 22:45
But think about it Seth the question tells you a lot about where your thinking is. The fact that you formulated that question, tells you (that) you're thinking is Christian centered rather than human centered. So, you know, I appreciate Christianity for what it is. I appreciate Islam for what it is. I appreciate Buddhism for it is, each one of those are independent thought systems. They're not necessarily mine, but they're independent thought systems. And I accept that if a Christian gets great comfort from Christianity…great! If a Muslim gets great comfort from Islam…great! If a Buddhist get great comfort from Buddhism…great. I get great comfort from Judaism because it is the culture, the religion, the thought process of my people.
Seth Price 23:35
Nora, I’d ask you the same question. Mostly because of what you said earlier when I asked you what are you like, “sure, why not.” So what is kind of your relationship there?
Nora 23:44
So I’ve putting together the beginning of a book, Jesus is A Guy I Knew, that is the title and the reason is is because I think honestly, I learned more about the person of Jesus through studying Judaism then I knew practicing hardcore Christianity. And I think that we only learn what is taught to us. But we don't go beyond that. And it's almost for me, any religion sometimes can be more of an identity and sort of a membership club versus understanding what that is really supposed to be at all. And so I think that I've been grateful to have Rabbi in my life, and others have spoken into it, to help me sort of, as we like to say in Christianity, deconstruct and reconstruct. formation of something foundational that we weren't given as an oath, or something like that, but it's truly coming from within and so that’s where I’m at.
Seth Price 25:29
I like that. Thank you both for that.
Rabbi I have a question. From what Nora tells me (and) a lot of this is new to me. I just know so precious little about the practice of Judaism. Is it true that it is the only Abrahamic religion that doesn't really proselytize its faith? Which is probably why I don't know a lot, if true, because there's no interest in I guess conversion or am I saying that wrong?
Rabbi Tarlow 25:51
It probably what the proselytization 2000 years ago, which is probably where the Christians got it. But so many Christians were converting Judaism in the 4th Century, that the church got scared and told the Rabbi's, if you proselytize will take your head off. In which case they said, Oh, we don't really proselytize.
On the other hand, today, Judaism is kind of a live and let live religion. So if you’re happy with who you are, I don't want to change you. That's perfectly okay. On the other hand, we do see, especially a reawakening of people who were forced to convert to Christianity. That's especially true in the Latino world, and many of those people are finding their way back to Judaism.
So that's kind of changing the demographic of who we are for the better. And often, we end up with people who’ll become interested in Judaism, either for one or two reasons. They discovered their family once was Jewish and was forced to convert, or we see especially true among highly educated people who find Judaism to be extremely rational, (and) logical. And Judaism is based on action rather than so much on belief. And Christianity, I always tell people, the key to Christianity is belief and actions give profundity to that belief. In Judaism, the key is action and then your beliefs add profundity through your actions. So it's a different way of seeing the world.
Seth Price 27:22
I like that. Although I will say, as I talked to many people, I will go round and round with many Christians that just say they're Christians, but don't act as such. And so I think I would mirror that. And I think there's a big push towards that. And not only Christianity, also, I've seen that in some friends that are of Muslim faith that are the same mindset. Which is, I think, it makes things uncomfortable, but I think it's a progression forward. You brought up the 4th Century twice. And so can you give me some examples about kind of that, schism, is the wrong word, but I don't have a better word of kind of what was happening there?
Rabbi Tarlow 28:01
Well remember in the during the Roman occupation, especially the what Christians would call it 1st Century; for us it would be like the 34th century, but we’ll use your terminology. You had a major revolt against Rome. And the Romans (did what was) normal in all societies they were both fascinated and hated their enemies. They should have conquered Judea in about three days. It would have been kinda like the United States, Russia, Germany, England, France against Luxembourg. Instead the revolt was so successful, even though they failed in the end, that the Romans had to bring soldiers as far away Scotland in order to put it down.
So the Jewish world was always fascinating to the Romans. Why is it that this little people tucked away in the corner of the Mediterranean was able to withstand the total power of the biggest Empire the world had ever known. And that led eventually to sort of a kind of understanding. Now, eventually, some people started to accept Christianity who were not Jewish. They were definitely Gentiles and they really started pulling through a lot of Greek mythology into their Christianity.
You see the second stage of that in the Reformation in the 16th century. But in this period, you're going to have the Council of Nicea and they take a vote on it. Is Jesus God or not? I think Jesus wins by four votes, if I'm not mistaken (I can’t find evidence for this but looked to link here…) it was a very narrow vote, and you had the huge schism. And that's when Christianity really separates itself from Judaism.
But on top of that, in order to justify themselves, they entered for the first time into a world of anti semitism. And that anti semitism will manifest itself all the way through to the 20th Century, and with periods of acquiescence and in periods of war. But that has been a struggle for Christians. Christianity's had two struggles. One the struggle of faith versus action. For example, Protestantism puts more emphasis on faith. Catholicism puts more emphasis on sort of a mélange of the two.
But secondly, what is its relationship to the Jewish people (and) on some level Christians have resented it, because we gave up Jesus. On the other hand, Christians about a problem, the only people who knew Jesus said no that is not what we need, you misinterpreted. And so there's this uncomfortableness within Christianity of where it stands. And that's not a Jewish problem. That's a Christian problem. That's something that Christians are still trying to work out for themselves. Who are we? What are we? What is our role? What is our background? How did we get here? Those are not for me to answer it but that's the Christians to answer.
But those are challenges. And the people who created those challenges are the Jewish people and so our existence is therefore a challenge to Christians.
Seth Price 31:12
You think that's what most Christians would say? The Jewish existence is a challenge to Christianity?
Rabbi Tarlow 31:18
No, I don't think so. I think probably theologians would say. I think the average Jew or Christian really doesn't do a lot of deep thinking about his religion, they just do it. Just like, I doubt the average Christian thinks faith versus action. But the theologians do it right. I mean, you had a huge fight between the Catholic Church and Martin Luther in Germany, but he puts his demands on the church door and nails them there. And he says, no actions don’t count only faith counts. And that's a struggle that takes place in the Christian world.
Seth Price 31:54
I saw a meme today that I almost posted but I didn't feel like getting an argument today, on Facebook, that had Martin Luther. And it had a picture of Luther and it was taken from, I don't know if either of you watch football and I feel like being that you're both in Texas you must. I'm also from Texas and so football is literally in my DNA. And that's the wrong way to use the word literally but I'm going to do it and I'm not going to edit it because I'm the one editing it and (laughs from all)
Rabbi Tarlow 32:22
I like that
Seth Price 32:23
Yeah, I'm just not. I'll say that I will and then I'll forget, but there was at the Georgia Notre Dame game someone held up on game day a picture of Martin Luther and it took me a long time to realize why that was so funny. And about 30 minutes later I'm like oh, clever somebody is or isn't really is really clever here. And then the the main that I saw the day was Martin Luther I believe inerrancy so much that I'd like to throw out a few books of the Bible. Which really makes me laugh quite a bit as he wanted to redact everything.
So I want to drill back down. So how we're Christians, can you referenced earlier, Christians converting to Judaism or the intermingling of the two in the fourth century and how they like threatened beheading. Like, what did that look like?
Rabbi Tarlow 33:10
They were not Christians until the Council of Nicea, okay. So they were, you might call Jesusites. Now there's some Jews who saw Jesus as a potential messiah. But we have to be really careful because the Christian word Messiah and the Hebrew word Messiah are very different. So basically messiah would be a successful politician who would help bring back the Jewish people who were scattered to the land of Israel. Greeks intermingled that with the idea of Jupiter, and eventually come up with Jesus as a god. But that's a big argument between the Jesusites, and what eventually will become the Christians. And that only takes place in the middle of the 4th Century. But I don't want to lecture Christians on Christianity; that seems kind of unfair.
Seth Price 33:57
No, no, that's fine. So I will say my church history is lacking and you don't know me well, but the way my brain works, I have so many more questions, and I'm gonna have to buy 100 more books. And this will probably cause an argument with me and my wife. And it's definitely going to be the two you’s fault, because I'm going to add books to the library and I'm going to blame you both; and it'll be fine.
Rabbi Tarlow 34:18
(both Nora and Rabbi laugh)
Yes, I understand. When I retired, I had to give away over 10,000 books…
Seth Price 34:27
That hurts me…
Rabbi Tarlow 34:28
…it hurts me too. It hurt me. I put another 6000 in my son's attic to store. And now I only read a lot of books electronically, as we have no more space.
Seth Price 34:40
I read books electronically because I don't have to have evidence that I have them. I can hide them.
Rabbi Tarlow 34:44
Yes, we are out of space! Literally that's it. I need to buy new house!
Seth Price 34:54
For your books? You just need to buy a library with a bedroom is what you need. I can't make my mind stop spinning about the questions I had, but it will derail. I want to talk a bit about just the posture of a Jewish faith in the politically charged world, especially of Texas, that we live in now. I don't know when this will air but that's not going away.
Rabbi Tarlow 35:21
No it is getting worse.
Seth Price 35:22
I don't know how it can not get any, the bar is really low, it's becoming lower, and eventually it will only be able to get better. I'm not even sure what that looks like. But the bar continues to Limbo to the floor. And I don't know where it stops, eventually when it's flush, I guess. But what is the posture of a Jewish faith living inside what I will call an empire of America? You have the strongest, I can use it as an anagram for Babylon or something like that, like what is the posture for Judaism living in America?
Rabbi Tarlow 35:50
I'm not sure I understand the word posture but I’ll try the position. I think most Jews feel very comfortable in America, currently. And of course, you could never tell where we’ll be in the future. But currently, I would say this being a minority in a gentle country is very good. Being a minority in a country that is hostile, or cruel, is very bad. On the whole, the American people have always been a gentle people. My family's been here for 100’s of years. My first language is English, my parents language is English, my grandparents language is English, my great grandparents language is English, you know, as far back as I can remember. And even at probably the worst time in the world, there only really two times that I say Jews ever felt uncomfortable in this country. One was in the Civil War, Ulysses Grant signed a decree expelling the Jewish population of Memphis, Tennessee. He was immediately overridden by President Lincoln and called to task. And eventually he apologizes profoundly. He actually ended up being a really great President, Grant, but he did that without really thinking. So but that was definitely a low point (but it) didn't last long and Lincoln, you know, put a stop to like, as quickly as he found out about it.
I think the other time that probably people felt a little bit uncomfortable, and not with American but with we didn't know what would happen, was World War Two. But if Hitler had won, that would have been a different situation. But the nice thing is that we were in it with everybody else. It was a national fight for survival. But I think, you know, there's certainly anti semitism, I'm not going to say there wasn't.
You may remember Arthur Godfrey, he was an entertainer when I was a child, hnd when we went to Cub Scouts to meet him in Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, he would not allow Jewish Cub Scouts, he would not shake their hand, and he had a sign over his house that said, “No black Jews”. Well, he's a much worse word for blacks. “No blacks, Jews, or dogs permitted”. So I remember that, you know, as a child, but that was the exception. You know, it wasn't the norm.
Probably the only time you really feel uncomfortable is Christmas. I always tell people the favorite day of most Jewish children is December 26. And they say why? And I say it’s because you don't have to deal with Christmas for another year. (laughter from all)
And a lot of Christians are starting to agree with me, it's interesting.
Seth Price 38:26
I agree with you. I'm really upset that on Columbus Day, it will already be Christmas everywhere that I turn.
Rabbi Tarlow 38:36
And it seems to me, as a non Christian, that Christmas is all about going into bankruptcy and killing trees. When I asked people what the meaning of it is, they tell me to spend money. I go, that's quite a holiday; where is the religiosity in this? But certainly in the public schools where they force you to sing Christmas carols. That's kind of uncomfortable. Today it's not like it was when I was a child. Today, schools tend to try to be much more inclusive, one way or the other. But 50 years ago, 40 years ago, it wasn't so inclusive. I do think though that we’re overwhelmed by Christmas. You know most of my Christian friends feel overwhelmed by Christmas. I have lots of friends who are ministers and priests and they can't wait for the holiday to be over. Because it's been so commercialized.
Seth Price 39:25
I fully agree, Nora do you agree?
Nora 39:31
Completely.
Seth Price 39:32
I'm not a fan. Let me try that again. As a Christian I like Christmas and I emphasize the words that way on purpose, but the rest of the stuff god it annoys me so much, but I don't even like to celebrate my birthday really. Like days don't matter to me. Like it's the anniversary of the Sun orbiting the day that I was born. Yeah!!! We did it. We did it. Yeah, I can't. I can't stand it at all. I feel like often, and Nora I want your opinion on this, I feel like often the way that we talk about Scriptures, we sanitize it to the Prince of Egypt of the Scripture, it doesn't really matter what we're talking about. It's always the Prince of Egypt. It's there's no blood here. It's it's definitely not the Deadpool version of Scripture. (Nora laughs) Yeah. That's when you know you've watched the movie. It's a great movie, the sarcasm level is 127% in that movie, I love it. So I'm curious as to your thoughts on why and then how would you kind of combat that in faith as you engage with people of I guess both faiths, or any faith really, because I don't think we're the only one that sanitizers it but we do it frequently, very frequently?
Nora 40:45
You know, I think it's a disservice and especially as I learned, as Rabbi says, you have to learn Hebrew and I began down this path of trying to learn Hebrew, but also learning Greek, for the New Testament background, and bring understanding. Because what I came to realize is that the translators, especially, and Rabbi will speak to this, they're human, they're men. Why do we think suddenly, because they're translating something that is going to be revered, that they would not make mistakes or not put their bias into it? And so when you look at it through that lens, and I think that sometimes we can pedestalize pastors, we pedestalize even the Bible, and we forget, just like the, you know, Glenn says with his What if Project, we have to be willing to see that we create something we want to worship rather than, again, allowing it to stand on its own and get get the full breadth of it and maybe like it or not like it, and it's okay.
Seth Price 41:56
I'm curious your thoughts on that Rabbi on the Clorox sanitation of Scripture.
Rabbi Tarlow 42:04
Well, if you read Hebrew you don't have to worry about sanitizing.
Seth Price 42:07
But I don't. We have been over this! (everyone laughs)
Rabbi Tarlow 42:09
What I'm saying is there's two reasons against translation. One is that no two languages can say quite the same thing. In English, everything is past, present, (or) future. In classical Hebrew everything is ended, not ended, not begun, or did begin. It's a completely different verbal sense.
So the moment you translate your misinterpreting. But on top of that Hebrew doesn't hide things. For example, I remember seeing the Christian word God waxed verily or God vexed verily; but it means God's really angry. The Hebrew is “God was pissed off”. But in English you don't like dirty words. The whole concept of a dirty word, or to believe that sex is dirty, is a Christian concept.
Nora 43:07
That’s right.
Rabbi Tarlow 43:08
It's not a Jewish concept. So right away, the moment you translate you sanitize. What you're doing is you're Christianizing, you're taking a text and putting it into a different culture.
Nora 43:19
Yes.
Rabbi Tarlow 43:20
And in English there are many, many words that are sexual, that are considered to be improper, or dirty, or swear words—they're not in Hebrew. If it's human and God made us then everything we do, every every part of our body, is a gift of God.
Seth Price 43:39
How do I learn Hebrew then, actual conversation not a leading one, if I wanted to? So I'm 37 and I have a limited amount of time because I have three human beings that depend on me.
Rabbi Tarlow 43:48
The nice thing about Hebrew is that modern Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew are basically the same language. The Hebrew spoken in Israel is much closer to the Hebrew that Moses would have spoken then English is to the time of the Declaration of Independence. And so that's a big advantage. And secondly, Hebrew is absolutely mathematical and logical. The only difference between modern Hebrew and classical Hebrew, they're more words. But even the words are derived from ancient words.
For example, word for jet plane, in modern Hebrew matos, comes from the verb latus, like to fly like an angel, the machine that makes you fly like an angel. And then from that, we get all the, you know, stuff like that. A red light in Hebrew is the light that winks at you, that gives you a hint if you should go or not. So every word in the Hebrew language is connected to a Biblical word.
But I would say there's maybe some great programs on the web. I mean, you know, there are, I don't know if you're close to a university, but they may have a course. Usually most Jewish centers will have a Hebrew course but you may be far from that.
Seth Price 44:59
So I'm right outside Charlottesville. But as I google there's not a lot but I'm 35 minutes 40 minutes west of Charlottesville.
Rabbi Tarlow 45:13
We know there's two synagogues in Charlottesville.
Seth Price 45:15
Okay, I just have to dig deeper. I know there's one in Crozet and every time I drove by, Crozet is on the way to Charlottesville. Every time I drive by there's nobody there.
Rabbi Tarlow 45:27
Yeah, call them to find out when they meet or if you can speak to somebody. But we definitely know that there's an active congregation in Charlottesville. You remember the crisis in Charlottesville?
Seth Price 45:40
The Unite the Right rally?
Rabbi Tarlow 45:42
Yeah, that the statue remember that? It went right past one of the synagogues and that became a big deal.
Seth Price 45:50
Yeah, I remember that day vividly. We were supposed to go to the swimming pool that day (in Charlottesville) to play and we instead stayed here and watch the madness and then eventually play outside on the swing set, because why am I going to watch this?
Rabbi Tarlow 46:02
So that's why I know that there is a synagogue in Charlottesville.
Seth Price 46:06
Nora it tells me that you, somehow or another, have a relationship to the Pope. And I'm curious what that looks like?
Rabbi Tarlow 46:11
It's not that I have a relationship. The Pope has very close relationship to the Jewish community.
Seth Price 46:17
Okay.
Rabbi Tarlow 46:18
The Pope's best friend in Argentina is a Rabbi in Argentina. And they wrote two books together. And this particular Pope, who is really very open to everybody, invited all the European rabbis last year for Hanukkah. And they said, well, we have a real problem go to the Vatican and what will we eat? And he said, not to worry, we have a kosher kitchen. So this Pope is not the same as the Popes of 200 years ago. Same name, very different game.
But, I would actually say ever since Vatican II, there has been a major shift within the Catholic world, for the better; that’s a compliment.
Seth Price 47:00
One of my favorite people that have learned about Vatican two from is Paul Knitter he was there as a small like a what's the word? He was working in the Vatican as someone that would go fetch the scrolls and whatnot for the Bishops that were there that were voting on things. So he was under he's one of the last people to studied under…gosh the name escapes me the books too far away from me to go get I don't remember. He wrote a book about you know Without Buddha he could not be Christian as he starts to blend…
Nora 47:32
I remember, yes.
Seth Price 47:33
I just can't remember the name of the person that he was studying under. But I liked the way that he blended faith together.
What are those books that were written together with the Rabbi and with the Pope?
Rabbi Tarlow 47:49
You can look them up I don't remember their names anymore. I remember seeing it at the time and thinking oh isn't this neat. And then I kind of, you know, my mind moved on to the next thing.
Seth Price 48:00
Alright, so I'm say two things in closing, Nora, I'm gonna have to have you back. There's a lot more there that we didn't talk about. And I want to talk about it. So we were gonna make that happen.
And so I want to ask you both the same question as we engage into the next season in America, which is going to be fun. As we began to impeach the President, apparently today, right or wrong, that's gonna be fun (sarcasm). That's a thing.
Rabbi Tarlow 48:26
Though I understand that it is an inquiry into impeachment, which does not exist in the Constitution. That was kind of a political ploy.
Seth Price 48:31
Well, everything's a political ploy this time of year that's not going away and that animosity is not going away. And so what is one thing regardless of your faith that you both think we could do to actually be better? To play on what you said earlier Rabbi said, that if we have faith that things are whatever, you know, Republicans are going to fix it or the blue button is going to fix it. But to have action like to have a faith that even really matters of having a faith or a practice or a religion. Like what would be one thing that you would install that you would advise people that you were chaplaining, or that you were talking to Nora, you know, that would that could possibly help move the ball forward down that field?
Rabbi Tarlow 49:12
I probably would quote Micah,
To love justice, do righteously and walk humbly with your God.
Calm down. Be humble.
Nora 49:21
I love that. And I think I would, I would say, because if and Rabbi knows this, he knows my husband, and he knows how different we are. And I say that laughing out loud because Rabbi, you know, all the conversations that are probably running through your head too, but I would say to listen. But listen not to prosecute—listen to understand.
Seth Price 49:45
Rabbi if people want to have tourism security from you or anything else from you where would you send them?
Rabbi Tarlow 49:50
They can write to me at Ptarlow@tourismandmore.com. And if they want to get my weekly Bible portion in both English and Spanish they can just write to me and tell me they're interested in that.
Seth Price 50:23
Side question: how many languages do you know? Were it English were it Spanish were it Hebrew? You said another word earlier you said melange, which I think that's French. So how many actual languages do you know?
Rabbie Tarlow 50:34
Five.
Seth Price 50:35
That's ridiculous; just ridiculous.
Nora 50:36
And then I'll add this real quick. Rabbi had to go to France, and I said, “Rabbi, what are you doing”? And he said, “I'm learning French”. “When do you go”…”next week.” (we all laugh)
Seth Price 50:51
Nora where would you point people to?
Nora 50:53
For me? NoraSpeakman.com is where they can find everything they want to know. And then some.
Seth Price 51:03
Thank you both so much.
Rabbi Tarlow 51:06
I've enjoyed it. Thank you and have a good evening.
Seth Price 51:18
I was really challenged by Rabbi and by Nora, that I don't know really any Hebrew. The fact that I can't pronounce a Hebrew word really makes me mad. And so I'm going to begin doing that I have no idea how to start, I have found a few different resources to do that. And I told my family actually at dinner last night, or at least my wife, I think I'm going to learn Hebrew because it matters for at least my faith. I’m really looking forward to seeing what I learned, how I hear from God differently as I read the Bible, and Scripture, in the language that was actually written in, or at least try to. And so if that is something that interests you, or something that you've done, let me know how you did it. I need some resources. I need some help. Let's crowdsource that. I don't even know where to begin. And I could Google it but sometimes that takes you down a rabbit hole that you're just not really prepared to mess with. I'm going to do that it's going to be good.
Next week, what you will hear is a conversation that I really liked about a book that deeply challenged me, especially as we walk into the political election. And so, Professor Soong-Chan Rah along with Mark Charles, both of those have been past guests. And Mark, if you're not aware is currently running for President, which is amazing. And I love what he has to say about reconciliation and conciliation and what it means to actually be for all the people. He's doing some big things but his book along with Professor Soong-Chan Rah is called Unsettling Truths are really think really, really, really think that you're going to enjoy it.
I’m actually going to try something a bit different this week. I want to leave you with a little teaser of what you will hear next week. I can't wait for you to come back next week and hear the remainder. Here we are. Be blessed everybody.
Seth Price 53:04
The history of our country, once you get past the you know MacLaughlin Hill approved literature for eighth grade history class is crazy. So I want to begin right towards the beginning of the book you talk about and if it's all right, I'd like to quote a few places I actually don't remember when the book is out. But by the time the book is out won't be plagiarizing this. So, there's a part where you all talk about the power of metaphors. And you talk about George Lakoff and assert that metaphors are a particular form of communication, and they impact the formation of social reality, and the institutions that function in that society.
And so, I want you to break those two apart. So what do we mean when we mean like a social metaphor impacting social reality? Like what does that actually mean for someone not engaged in that type of thought process?
Professor Soong-Chan Rah 54:01
Sure. So try to engage how social reality comes into being and what is the social reality, the cultural world view, that we live in. And there's significant work on this in sociology circles Probably the landmark work was by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, where they talk about three different factors that form social reality.
And one of the key factors, and the language and even a little bit different from Berger and Luckmann’s language, but what Berger and Luckmann called internalization, I use the word narratives. And narratives are the stories, the metaphors, and the imagination that gets the embedded or embodied or internalized within our society and within the individuals that we play out over and over and over and over and over again. And so I use the example that systems and structures might actually come and go at times-like a system structure of slavery. And then once slavery as institution is broken down it's replaced by another institution, in this case, Jim Crow. And then even when Jim Crow was torn down is replaced by another institution, The New Jim Crow.
So you have three systems that are operating, essentially the same way. They are oppressive towards people of color, particularly African Americans. So you have the systems that you thought you were overcoming, you thought you were tearing down, you thought you were breaking down. But what you didn't deal with were the narratives that were fueling these systems. And so what I point out is that we can keep tearing down these systems but if don't deal with the fuel that drove the systems in the first place, that identified the narrative, you're going to end up rebuilding the system and reworking the system over and over again?
And so how our narratives form is the question that's being asked you in this chapter. Narrative is form of the social imagination.