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028 - I'm back! Where I've been and where we're going
20 Plays10 days ago
Have you felt ghosted and abandoned by your favorite rabbi (me, obviously) ? Did you come here expecting an apology for my half a year absence?
Well, you won't get an apology, but you will get an explanation. Settle in for an update on what I've been up to, and some thoughts about how I'd like to expand my efforts to make a Jewish wedding accessible for anyone who wants one.
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Are you planning a Jewish or interfaith wedding? Are you lost on where to even begin planning the ceremony, let alone finding a rabbi to help you?
00:00:12
Speaker
Well, it doesn't matter whether one of you is Jewish or you're both Jewish. You deserve a guide. So take a deep breath. I promise it will all be okay. Welcome to Your Jewish Wedding with Rabbi Lian. Here, I can be everyone's rabbi, yours too. My guests and I will share everything we know to help make your Jewish or interfaith wedding full of tradition and perfectly yours.
00:00:57
Speaker
Well, hello, everyone. It is so good to be back here with you on the Your Jewish Wedding podcast. I have been gone for a long time. If you are binge... I'm sorry. If you're binge listening to this, maybe months or years after it posts, this may not be obvious to you, but I have been completely absent from this podcast, like planning, writing, recording, everything for a little over six months now. I'm not going to do one of those things where I apologize for being gone because first of all,
00:01:37
Speaker
I'm pretty sure almost nobody noticed that I had not posted new podcast episodes. Maybe at most somebody thought, oh, that's sad that Rabbi Leanne is one more of those people who thinks she can handle doing a podcast and then just gives it up. And then, you know, just went about your life and found some other resources for planning your Jewish
Engaging the Audience
00:01:57
Speaker
wedding. And if you needed resources for planning your Jewish wedding and I was absent in your life, please do accept my apology. I assume that doesn't apply to the vast majority of you.
00:02:07
Speaker
So if you were looking for Jewish wedding resources and I was sadly absent, I do hope you found something to help you. And if in fact you did find some Jewish wedding resources to help you, email me at yourjewishweddingpodcastatgmail.com and let me know what they were because I would like to have an episode that really gathers and summarizes and just makes available to you all more resources for planning your Jewish
Personal Updates and Reflections
00:02:40
Speaker
wedding. I think that that things out there are really few and far between these days. So what have I been doing? I know you all want to know, but first I've almost forgotten the tradition of this podcast, which is to give you the weather report and to let you know about my candle. So,
00:03:02
Speaker
Let's just cut the suspense. I am in fact burning a candle in my office. The candle is a snowflakes and cashmere scented candle, which Bath and Body Works. I love your candles, but I am about done for several reasons, but I'm about done, especially with the names of these candles. What do snowflakes and cashmere smell like?
00:03:31
Speaker
Anyway, it smells kind of like vanilla. It's very light and there are actually snowflakes outside today. We've had our typical crazy Ohio weather. It was super cold all last week. like super cold like I didn't walk the dogs one morning because the wind chill was right at two degrees I think and then we had a couple very warm days in the 50s with lots of rain and now this morning we had snow showers when it was time for the kids to go to school so it is still absolutely frigid outside it is the kind of cold where in my office
00:04:08
Speaker
My hand that clicks the mouse, it is right next to the window and it's cold. I need one of those mittens that like you wear on your hand. So when you click the mouse, it doesn't get as freezing cold. And I am just feeling like I cannot warm up, which I'm that person. I never cold, never, never. I'm always like, I'm the one turning down the heat in the house and telling the kids to put on a sweater. And even today I am like cold chilled to the bone. Okay. So where have I been? I last posted a podcast episode, I believe in June.
00:04:48
Speaker
And that obviously is when summer started. I had the best summer with my kids. This, if you know me at all, and especially if you've known me for a long time,
00:05:04
Speaker
being a mom to little kids was very difficult for me.
00:05:10
Speaker
I, but from about the age of two to 10 years old, I just honestly have have a really hard time with the kids. I love them very much. I did not in general, like spending a lot of time with them. Okay. It, I always needed to recharge. I always needed to have some me time.
00:05:35
Speaker
Yes, I would go to the bathroom and sometimes eat a snack in there just to have some peace and quiet. If you know, you know, don't judge me, the bathroom's clean, whatever.
00:05:50
Speaker
Right around when the kids hit the age of 10, I start to like them. I start to enjoy having conversations with them, start to like,
00:06:01
Speaker
spending time with them, doing things with them just because, hanging out. Around the age of 12, which is the age of my youngest child right now, is when I really just have a great time with them. This, by the way, has been, what's the opposite of a crisis? Like an epiphany, not a crisis, but like a life epiphany, like a like a relief that Actually, this motherhood thing is not a doomed prospect for me. I spent a lot of years of my life just really ah beating myself up because I just didn't adore the work of being a mother. And i I wouldn't say that I still adore it now. You know, teenagers, they can be rough and tough sometimes, but in general, I don't mind.
00:07:00
Speaker
the teenager nonsense. Do they annoy me with their teenager antics sometimes? Yes. Am I unmoored, devastated in turmoil because of all the teenager nonsense? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. A couple of times I had been, but
00:07:24
Speaker
I did some reading and I did some listening to podcasts and I learned that the number one rule of parenting teenagers is don't take it personally. So that is a mantra that I use when whenever somebody is angry with me or you know just griping about something or doing something that I personally would not advise or sanction. And I'm for the most part able to take a deep breath and say, it's not personal. Teenage brains, like scientifically, are an absolute mess.
00:08:03
Speaker
They feel it. We feel it. It's frustrating for everyone. And the best thing that you can do as a parent is just like chill and be there. And I've learned that. And for the most part, I'm i'm just fine. Parenting teenagers. In fact, I really like it. So going back to my update about where I've been, back in April,
00:08:25
Speaker
I found out that one of my favorite musicals, Cabaret, was having a revival on Broadway beginning this summer. now I am really a fan of the musicals that were written in like the fifties, sixties, a little bit seventies. That is my thing. You know, when I was in high school, I did musicals. I was always in the ensemble. I'm not such a singer. I'm definitely not such an actor, but we did the shows. We did.
00:08:59
Speaker
Oklahoma and Hello Dolly and the Pirates of Penzance. ah We did Damn Yankees. We did a show called My Favorite Year, which was actually from the 1990s, but it was very classic. We like those shows that
00:09:19
Speaker
are just they here's Here's what it is. ok It's not anything sentimental. It's not anything spiritual. It's simply this. When I was in high school in the 1990s, the late 1990s, the musicals that you could license to perform for pretty cheap were the ones with the big ensemble, you know, Annie Get Your Gun, How Low Dolly, all the ones that were written in like the 50s, 60s, early 70s, Once Upon a Mattress, the real classics. um And so those are the ones that i I love as an adult because they're the ones that, you know, we
00:09:53
Speaker
Bought the cassette tape even oh my gosh the way if you were a theater kid from the 1990s and you were obsessed with lame is That was every theater kid because we would go and bought the cassette tape of the lame is soundtrack it was a double one actually it's a long soundtrack and Then you know next to it in the store. ah Gosh. I remember I had a ah cassette tape set compilation of Angeloid Weber songs. So I learned all these musicals by Angeloid Weber. I knew Sunset Boulevard, which is being revived now on Broadway. So anyway, Cabaret is one of my favorite musicals. It's not a typical favorite of mine, actually, because it's not happy fun times, but it is very emotional if you are Jewish, if you
00:10:43
Speaker
ah love history, especially ah World War I, World War II history. It is about ah Berlin, Germany in the lead up to World War II and the way that things were changing for all the residents there. It's very sad. It's just a sad show, but there are some very beloved songs and there are a lot of opportunities to make the performance something new and memorable every time. So I found out that it was being revived on Broadway. I had already missed the 2019 revival of Oklahoma and the 2022 revival of The Music Man. And I deeply regretted not just literally taking myself on a plane for one day and spending the money to go see Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster on Broadway. Well, long story short, COVID's over. um We have a little bit more flexibility in our budget to do things like travel just a little bit, not a lot, but enough.
00:11:40
Speaker
for me to actually consider, can I go to see Cabaret on Broadway? so Oh, and Eddie Rodmane. Eddie Rodmane is the emcee.
00:11:51
Speaker
i I was beside myself, honestly. So I hemmed and hawed. I looked at ticket prices online. Very expensive, by the way. But they had gutted this theater and they had rebuilt it. So it was cabaret in the round. you know No set. It was really made into the KitKat Club. Absolutely incredible. I was at this point just dying to go. Swung a ticket for Okay, how do I say this? It was about the same price as you would pay to go to like a touring concert of a low-level headliner band. Okay, it wasn't $100, but it wasn't $1,000, okay? This ticket, and I found three because um I have four children. My two girls are the ones ah who are the theater kids.
00:12:51
Speaker
One of them is backstage. um She has done over two dozen shows now. um Really always looking for new opportunities and new ways to be involved in theater. Absolutely would never in a million years want to be part of the performance, part of the production. And then my other daughter is, I think she's starting now her 16th or 17th show. She is on stage and she has been, you know, even getting leads for the last couple of years, which I never, I never got. nu Certainly not in junior high. Never in high school was I a lead in a show
00:13:28
Speaker
So they both have really embraced it and they love theater and I knew that if I went to see Cabaret on Broadway, I couldn't go without them.
Family and Personal Commitments
00:13:39
Speaker
So anyway, I did the whole thing where I went on one of those travel sites with the packages for the flight in the hotel. We got a two-star hotel, which turned out to have a dripping air conditioner, but to be next to a really great bodega,
00:13:55
Speaker
We got the tickets for Cabaret and it kind of snowballed from there. One of my daughters really loves the musical Six. I'm not such a fan, but whatever. We got tickets for that and we got last minute tickets to see Little Shop of Horrors, which was absolutely phenomenal and we will go see that show every single time we are in New York City that you heard it here and I will I will uphold that promise anyway I took my girls to New York City at the beginning of June right after school ended for them and we had the absolute greatest time here is the kicker I was planning to like this trip was like budget budget okay you can imagine if you whatever
00:14:37
Speaker
I got this trip down to like the lowest possible. I was like, we are going to do everything we possibly can in New York city. It was their first time going. I hadn't been since I was literally in high school. And what do you know? We book everything about a month before, no less. It was a couple of weeks before we were going to New York city. We found out what was going to be revived once upon a mattress.
00:15:06
Speaker
but it wasn't going to open until August. Now, Once Upon a Mattress, I was never in Once Upon a Mattress, but somehow I knew all the songs. Did I have, I can't even remember. In high school, I mean i learned all the songs to Once Upon a Mattress, beloved show. Fun fact, it was written by the daughter of Rogers, of Rogers and Hammerstein. So Mary Rogers wrote Once Upon a Mattress. She was friends with Stephen Sondheim, and some people have suggested that he lifted inspiration and concepts for Into the Woods from Mary Rogers doing Once Upon a Mattress. It's an absolutely incredible show. And my daughter was in it as the queen. She loves to be the bad guy in shows. She has a great time.
00:15:53
Speaker
And interestingly, the show she's working on right now, she is um she's like the least bad guy in the whole show. And she's having a great time at that too. But she was the queen in Once Upon a Mattress in a local children's production a couple years back. and and playing Princess Fred, the lead, was Sutton Foster, who, if you know you know, she's a she's a modern, current Broadway legend. Never will there be another woman, another person on the Broadway stage like Sutton Foster. I i knew about her, like I knew she was marrying the librarian, the music man, she's done Sweeney Todd, she did.
00:16:34
Speaker
Um, crazy for you. No, anything goes. She did anything goes. She's just been sort of everywhere on Broadway and people rave about her. And I'm like, Oh yeah, she's very gifted. She's very cute. Listen, they even took Mary and the librarian, uh, down to an Alto.
00:16:53
Speaker
voice range for her, which really angered some people because Marian the Librarian is supposed to be a soprano. Anyway, so I knew that we had to get ourselves to New York to see this revival, so we ended up planning another very, very quick trip to New York City at the end of the summer to see Sutton Foster in Once Upon a Mattress. It was a preview, I think it was the first Monday preview of the show.
00:17:20
Speaker
Absolutely incredible. To be in a room with Sutton Foster performing is what I imagine it would be like to have been in a room with Lucy. Like I love Lucy performing. There is something about her. It was so funny. I looked, I did that thing where I looked at the audience a couple of times. There was not a person in that audience who was not smiling.
00:17:47
Speaker
or laughing. I will never regret it. So these were the bookends to my summer with my kids in between. ah We went to ah Lake Erie, Lake House for six days and just sat around. We basically did the same things we would be doing at home except at Lake Erie.
00:18:06
Speaker
We went to a bunch of local musicals. We have a family tradition of going down to Cincinnati every summer to see the Cincinnati Young People's Theater performance. This year it was, anything goes.
00:18:19
Speaker
absolutely amazing. They're Reno Sweeney. Gosh, i there are bright bright things in her future. And we did a lot of just around-the-house projects. We did a lot of organizing. um My oldest son did a lot of volunteering. My other son was working at the JCC snack bar all summer, saved up a little bit of money, got his driver's learner's permit.
00:18:43
Speaker
so Anyway, it was a very busy summer, and as they get older, I am more and more aware that you know I only have so many summers left with them at home full time and able to hang out with me. I know when they go to college, you know they'll come home to visit. Maybe they'll come home for the summer, although I never wanted to go home for the summer, and neither did my husband, David. We really liked our independence and um always working towards new things. so yeah We don't have all that much time left. So I really prioritized this summer. My number one priority is my kids, of course, but you know, very close to that is all of you.
00:19:29
Speaker
Right? Not all of you. um um I mean to say all of my wedding couples. If there was a wedding I needed to work on, people I needed to be there for, that was absolutely the number one thing I was going to do. And between that and all the regular life stuff I had to do, and then just really enjoying the summer with my family, the podcast was not the number one priority. It just wasn't.
00:19:57
Speaker
In there, in the summer, we were beginning to really ramp up to my youngest child's bat mitzvah, which was right smack dab in the middle of autumn. And she, how do I put this? She does work hard.
00:20:16
Speaker
but she's not the best self-starter. She needs a lot of hand-holding when it comes to managing her time. So she needs somebody to sit with her and say, okay, what are you going to do today? And how are you going to practice? And what are your goals? And you can't just do that once. It has to be like every single day. And I have a tough time with it, honestly, um with all my kids. It's one of the reasons that I've also been really bad about giving them chores because like i can't I can't stand the, did you do your chores today? Did you do your chores today? Sticker charts, rewards, no. I can't, I want them to manage themselves. So once the pressure of the bat mitzvahs started getting closer and closer, and of course I was my daughter's tutor, it was just more convenient that way, right, an in-house tutor. However, she probably would have gotten a lot more done if she had been with an outside of the house tutor because we would have had, like,
00:21:15
Speaker
really regimented times that she had to practice in homework and stuff, whatever. Lehat Hila and Bid Diyved, right? Like, you know, hindsight is 20-20, basically. That's the Jewish law principle that is like, you know, ask for permission first, but ask for forgiveness later, okay. So, it all did turn out fine, but once the kids went back to school, we were really just 100%, you know, pedal to the metal, um getting ready for that bat mitzvah. Now I did it all DIY. This is going, maybe this is bad because I am you know in the wedding industry. There are bat mitzvah planners out there. There are people who plan these things and they do a wonderful job and you can pay them and they're professionals and it makes your life so much easier.
00:22:09
Speaker
And I am so cheap. Guys, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't hire somebody. So I was here planning this whole bat mitzvah. I made the little logo for the sweatshirts and I booked all the people and I did all the decorations. I was at that shul decorating for a literal week before the bat mitzvah. We did not have an evening party. I said to her, you can either have an evening party or you can have those sweatshirts that you want. And she had to have this particular color of sweatshirts. They had to be bone white from, oh, Independent Trading Company, that's what it was. They're pretty solid sweatshirts. I don't know, whatever. I only like 100% cotton sweatshirts, but these were fine. And because she had to have this specific color, of course, they were one of the more expensive kinds of sweatshirts. I had to hunt all around to find places that would print them.
00:23:06
Speaker
All the things. I did every single piece of this bat mitzvah. I even cooked the food because I was too cheap to get catering for what she wanted, which was a pasta bar. Anyway, obviously the podcast was back of the burner then.
00:23:20
Speaker
now I understand that I have been speaking for 24 minutes about why I have not been here with you all. Maybe I'll put a disclaimer in the beginning that tells people to just fast forward if they don't want to know. But I figure that if you are here for this episode, and I think it's episode 28,
00:23:39
Speaker
then you know full well by this time that I am just going to talk and talk and talk forever, and you're here for it. So welcome back, everyone. So another thing that I think has been really consuming a lot of my mental energy, besides the time excuses that I just gave you, right? Summer with the kids is crazy, bat mitzvah stuff is crazy, you know, typical mom stuff.
Addressing Antisemitism
00:24:00
Speaker
I had a lot of weddings in the fall that was really busy. Of course, the podcast was one of my last priorities, but I've also been doing sort of an extra bit of i'm just being concerned about the news. I gotta be honest. it's not I know it's not great, um but the increasing antisemitism that I have just been you know really feeling in a big way has been
00:24:27
Speaker
taking up some of my mental energy I'm not I'm not going to to sugarcoat it there was ah pogrom after the soccer game in Amsterdam really really shook me the day before that there had been a situation where there were protesters keeping Jews in their synagogue and banging on the walls. You know, since then we've had synagogues sit on fire, Jewish schools attacked all around the world in places where you normally would think it it would be okay, right? um New York City, there's been a lot of random, not random, one-off stuff, ah protests going through Jewish neighborhoods, you know, person-on-person violence, and it's it's very clearly anti-Semitic.
00:25:09
Speaker
So, and then, you know, the election happened. Lots of different people feel lots of different ways about the election. Obviously, Jews are ah voted the way that we've always voted en masse, basically, over um four out of five of us voted ah blue. But I think for the first time in a long time for a lot of Jews, that was a really difficult decision, right? In the past, you know, the way the Jews were gonna vote. and And the Jews that I knew actually They were just, it was very, to them, obvious how they were going to vote. Nobody hemmed and hawed over it, right? Either they were going to go vote red because, um you know, ah who who which Jews voted red? It was Jews for school choice.
00:25:54
Speaker
um Jews who really wanted to vote with the party they felt was stronger toward Israel um and sort of maybe more conservative Jews would vote would vote red a lot of the time and then and it was it was a no-brainer right it was ah of course so we're voting red um for those reasons and then there were the Jews who were voting blue and it was from them it was really like of course Jews vote blue and that has been a long-standing American tradition for probably like the last 60 years is the vast majority of Jews vote blue Here comes the 2024 election. We've been, since ah October 7th, just a little over a year, things in terms of anti-Semitism have really not calmed down. Jews are feeling kind of rough, I think, in America, just in general, um waiting to see the way our government would react towards what's going on in Israel. And this election, I think,
00:26:53
Speaker
I can't imagine a Jew for whom this election was not hard to participate in, to see the results of, to really grapple with how we felt after the results, which for me, I will share personally, the election results came in and I was absolutely not surprised.
00:27:18
Speaker
And also I didn't, I didn't have the same feeling about the result of, of the 2024 election that I did about the 2016 election. How to put this.
00:27:35
Speaker
Simply put, for for me and for a lot of other non-Orthodox Jews, I think for the first time ever, we were really we were really not sure. We didn't really have a conviction of which candidate would be better for the Jews. You know that thing, you know, is it good for the Jews? Not saying that we that we didn't vote for America, right? And actually there's a i Jewish belief that we are supposed to vote in the best interest of the country that we live in now. And so there's that anti-Semitic trope that Jews will never truly be members and citizens of any country they live in because they will always be loyal to their own people. And that, you know, is on its face, simply not, simply not true. That's not the way that Jews have have done things. We have a mandate in the book of Jeremiah, actually,
00:28:31
Speaker
that God tells the people, Jeremiah tells the people that we have been exiled from our land and now we need to focus on building our lives wherever we happen to be. And there is a verse in Jeremiah that says, pray for the peace of the nation of which you are a part, which contemporary Jews have by and large taken to mean that you're supposed to vote in the best interest of the country you live in, not in the interest of the Jews. However,
00:28:59
Speaker
there is still that sort of underlying question, I think, that we always have, like, is this good for the Jews? And we just didn't know the answer to that in this election, so. There was that on November 16th here in Columbus, Ohio, in the short north, there was a march of neo Nazis. So people with flags with swastikas on them marching through the short north, which is like the, you know, the slightly bougie hipster young people area of town. It's a short drive from my house. I think you can get there in, you know, eight to 10 minutes from my house, even with a little bit of traffic and
00:29:36
Speaker
There are some theater things there that my children have participated in right in that area. And here we have um giant swastika flags being marched down the street. There was everything that was going on in Montreal.
00:29:52
Speaker
Very tough stuff. um There was a rabbi who was killed in United Arab Emirates. And so just in general, we're all kind of shaken up. And my outlook in terms of how settled we really are, how how settled and how safe Jews are in the United States has really begun to shift in a way that does not feel
Hiatus and Personal Growth
00:30:11
Speaker
does not feel great. So all of this is to say that I am the kind of person who really throws myself into one or two things at a time.
00:30:19
Speaker
And I find it difficult to put much energy into anything else. Right. So I it is ah the gift of hyper focus, which is a gift that um attention deficit hyperactivity disorder gives many, many people and thank God has given me.
00:30:34
Speaker
I am just an intensely focused person when there is something that um needs to be focused on in actuality or i my brain tells me needs to be focused on. So the news has has made focusing on anything that's not essential kind of very difficult. So in summary, my house has been clean. My family has been fed. I have been an outstanding mom.
00:31:02
Speaker
You know, we had ah best holiday we had great holidays together. We had ah several shows my kids were participating in. I was there, like a thousand percent stage mom, some auditions too. And the bat mitzvah was great.
00:31:19
Speaker
The bomb is full was great. And it it went off very smoothly. It ended a little too early, but you know, that's neither here nor there. And most importantly, for the terms of this podcast, what I want all of you to know is that I have been an outstanding rabbi to every single one of my wedding couples and families I've been working on some Jewish life cycle stuff that is not weddings also, which is very exciting. I love being um a rabbi to all of the people that choose to work with me and it just fills my heart with joy and I really do put all my energy into that and ah that's pretty much all I'm able to do, which is why you have been abandoned. That was my entire bandwidth.
00:32:03
Speaker
And the podcast did not fit on that bandwidth. So I guess I am apologizing, but not really. It's just more of an explanation. And I do want to be here for you, although, which is why I came back. And now you have ah an over half an hour explanation of where the heck this podcast has been.
00:32:23
Speaker
And, you know, in addition to that, I've just been consistently trying to level up in life. Like, okay, I'm 42. That does make me an elder millennial. Of course, I was talking about cassette tapes earlier in the podcast. um So I just, I'm always trying to ask myself like, you know, how can I just do life a little better? There's little things, right? Like, okay, this summer, I just sort of had a moment where I was like, I am 42 years old.
00:32:53
Speaker
I am still exclusively using Bath and Body Works Body Sprays as my perfume. Okay. And even that was a pretty recent development. Like I only started doing that, like putting on like a lovely fragrance every day in my late thirties. Same with skincare, you know, I had a skincare moment where I was like really like, you know, trying to figure out that whole thing. So I got into figuring out perfume.
00:33:22
Speaker
Okay, I have once again confronted my handbag situation, right? Now, if you are the kind of person who carries a handbag, or a bag in general, you know it is a constant battle to figure out the one that is right for you. It's either it's like a real Goldilocks problem. It's either too big, or it's too small, or it looks too old or it looks too childish, or it needs to be cleaned too much, or something, right? And handbags are the kind of thing where you can either buy your handbag from Target, and it's still gonna be, by the way, like $30 or $40 for the synthetic leather, whatever, mouse-produced Target thing, and that is great if you're trying to figure out what works for you and what doesn't. I am trying to level up my life, so,
00:34:11
Speaker
I realized, I was like, hey, I think I have like a random old coach bag that I got at the online thrift store, like a Poshmark or something half a decade ago. Let me dig that up. Turns out it's really nice. I know shocker, right? Like a, like a coach handbag, like a vintage coach handbag that's over 20 years old, 20 years old would be really nice. It is. So now I've been, the last week I've been really obsessed with, okay,
00:34:39
Speaker
are the vintage coach handbags, like the ones that are just like leather, just straight leather, like no lining, no crazy colors, no nothing. It turns out though the year old leather coach handbags are better quality than the current bags that people are paying thousands and thousands of dollars for and even getting on wait lists to buy the bags.
00:35:02
Speaker
you know, if you know, you know, I'm not going to say the name here because I don't know if they're like Disney and they like hunt you down. But regardless, the old vintage coach handbags are still better than the new super ultra bougie waiting list ones you can buy now. Absolutely insane. So, you know,
00:35:21
Speaker
I spent like hours this week, like, clicking around, looking for new vintage bags. I pulled it together, I'm done, I'm here now, but, you know, I'm i'm trying to, I have these little moments of hyper focus where I'm trying to make my life better. Here's another example. I started making meals in bulk and freezing them. Not the whole meal, but just like, that you know there's always that one part of the meal that makes you not cook it, okay? For me, it's it's cleaning chicken,
00:35:51
Speaker
and and prepping it for dinner. i hate I hate touching the slimy chicken. I hate all of it. I hate the whole thing. like I wish that meat wasn't such a big part of my diet, which it is for medical reasons and whatever, but I don't love the whole meat thing. ok I don't like prepping it. i I don't like
Commitment to the Podcast and Expanding Services
00:36:11
Speaker
touching it. None of that.
00:36:13
Speaker
even even more than I don't like the rest of cooking, okay? So I was like, you know what, there's gotta be a better way to do this. Let me make, whatever I'm gonna make, let me make it times three or times four, and then just put the rest in the freezer. And I got one of those vacuum sealers, and I spent a couple weeks literally cooking food, you know, soup, brisket, meatballs, hamburgers, za'atar chicken,
00:36:40
Speaker
barbecue chicken, taco chicken, all the things, and vacuum sealing them and getting myself set up so that I can cook a lot less, which has made my life better, okay? And I'm also trying to, now this is where you guys can help me, I'm also trying to fill all that dead air time in my life. So dead air time, what is that?
00:37:01
Speaker
It's when I'm doing meaningless tasks, when I'm driving a long way to um pick up the kids from rehearsal or dance or whatever, when I'm cooking, when I'm cleaning, when I'm walking the dogs, which I do for like an hour and a half every single day. Instead of just sort of watching whatever junk videos I kind of sort of get caught up in doom scrolling, I want to be really intentional. I'm i'm trying to find a way to um you know, just build like a list for myself of the podcasts and the books and the Talmud classes that I really want to, like Talmud Torah, whatever classes that I really want to be filling my time with instead. So I've also been working on that.
00:37:45
Speaker
so i And I really, really want to get into journaling every day, too. That's the last thing. I really feel like the older I get, the more and more quickly life is just flying by. And maybe this is a midlife crisis, but just this this building sense of dread that I will have lived a whole life.
00:38:04
Speaker
and not a single person will remember what I did with it or who I was or the kind of things I liked. And so I want to write that down, not in like a, you know,
00:38:17
Speaker
dear Are you there God is me Margaret kind of way, but in a just a very here's what I did today. Here's my goals for the future Here was my experience with this and that and I think that maybe to someone in the future that will be that will be valuable um so just in general I've been trying to make things less chaotic around the house and you know in my brain and in my personal life so that I can and this is where I We get to the rabbi update. This is where this comes in, just so I can put more attention on becoming of a Jewish professional in the world that can help people, that can help wedding people and also that can help people beyond their wedding. So let's talk about after six months away, why did I even bother to come back? We'll talk about that after the break.
00:39:31
Speaker
Right, so it would have been easy enough for me to just completely drop the podcast, right? I could, listen, do you know another thing I started doing? I started picking up cross-stitch again because I used to cross-stitch things like snarky phrases. You know, when that was cool, like when it came out ah that Judi Dench cross-stitch swear words on set, you know, in her downtime.
00:39:58
Speaker
I was like, oh, that's funny. I did a lot of that. I actually did a lot of a lot of that cross stitching. I gave a bunch of weight. This was five, six years ago. And I still have all my stuff. Cross stitching supplies are expensive, and they don't take up a lot of room. So I just kept everything, like whatever. And I started cross stitching Yiddish curses. This is my new endeavor. This is my new iteration of what I did in the past. I'm really enjoying myself. If you are the kind of person who would like to receive a cross stitched Yiddish curse from me,
00:40:27
Speaker
email me at your Jewish wedding podcast at gmail dot.com. And if you have a favorite one or a snarky, like Yiddish grandma phrase that you want me to cross stitch for you, listen, I'll put it on the list. Okay. It's a long list of self-improvement here, but I digress. Why am I back? I do think that after six months of being away, my conviction that this podcast is important has not wavered. I do think that the podcast is important. You know, I have been seeing listens sort of aggregate. People are still listening, even though I haven't been uploading new episodes, which I know as a podcast listener, I know that can be so frustrating. They've still been listening. They've still been seeking out information. The podcast is still, as far as I can tell, pretty unique um in the podcast world.
00:41:17
Speaker
It may be the only podcast that you can go to for really systematic, really deep dive information on the elements of a Jewish wedding and things to consider when planning your Jewish wedding. And especially considering these times, I want to continue to build that resource for people who may be looking for it. Basically, as long as people want to have Jewish weddings, I want them to be able to find a resource.
00:41:44
Speaker
There is a little extra layer of man with the tough times Jews are going through now. And when I think probably for the first time in a long time, we don't really know what our future holds in terms of where we'll be able to comfortably live and what we'll be able to comfortably do. I think that it's important to have this resource. Listen, even if all of us have to move to Israel.
00:42:10
Speaker
Do you know what insanity that would be in terms of weddings? Maybe I'll do an episode on weddings in Israel, like the Israeli landscape of weddings, but I don't really know all that much about that. I'll have to figure it out. Anyway, it's very different than it is here. ah You have to go through a lot different processes to get married in Israel. And so anyway, imagine everybody, all the Jews from all over the world, most of us having to move back to Israel, which is the thing that happened um after World War II in a lot of countries.
00:42:41
Speaker
You know, there's still going to be need for a podcast about liberal Jewish weddings, because like a lot of a lot of people are liberal Jews. so A lot of Jews are liberal Jews. And you know for reasons I've discussed in previous episodes, um the interfaith wedding landscape is a whole different consideration, especially with you know these new layers that are being added day after day. I want to be able to imagine what that looks like for the way that couples are evolving, whether they're both Jews or whether one of them is Jewish, you know, let's keep exploring the best way to do this Jewish wedding thing as a way to keep everybody connected. I don't want it to be so difficult.
00:43:28
Speaker
that you just forget the idea of a Jewish wedding altogether. Okay. And that difficulty is always evolving. And that's why I think it's important to keep this podcast going. Like I don't want it to be like a book that's frozen in time. I want it to be keeping up with everything that's going on.
00:43:47
Speaker
letting you guys know about new things I'm learning, um new things I'm implementing, new things I'm seeing other rabbis do in their Jewish weddings, and to keep up with the things that you might want in an effort to to make sure you have that Jewish wedding. I really want you guys to have a Jewish wedding. You know, i I don't want it to be so difficult or so annoying or so outdated that you're like, forget it, that's not for us. um All right, on a practical note,
00:44:13
Speaker
I'm reading from my notes here. I i do have some notes for this. you You may not believe it, but I have some notes for this episode. um It's expensive to maintain a platform for podcast. So basically, I'm paying a monthly fee.
00:44:28
Speaker
to keep this podcast um on the air where it's currently hosted. And I just pay that fee whether or not I record, whether or not I upload episodes. So at a certain point, I'm like, Oh man, it's been six months. And you know, that monthly fee times six is not nothing. And If I am serious about this, I have to literally put my mouth where my money is and keep recording and keep posting, so I am back. I do think that the podcast is important though, okay? it's not just It's not just to justify the fee, right?
Critique and Customization of Wedding Scripts
00:45:01
Speaker
I understand sunk cost fallacy. I understand that I could just cut my losses, but I'm not gonna do that because I do think the podcast is important. Now, here's the real,
00:45:11
Speaker
change going forward that I want to really focus on as we move into 2025, as we move into the way things are changing in the world and the way the Jewish landscape is changing so fast um beneath our feet. Okay. So there are, I do a lot of weddings. Okay. I don't do as many weddings as I could be doing. I would like to book more weddings. But the important part is that There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Jewish people getting married every year that I never will talk to, you whether it's because I'm far away or because they're scared of rabbis or because I'm too expensive. Listen, I know all those things are very important factors or because it would weird out some member of their family to have a rabbi there. Whatever it is, I know that a lot of people still want to have
00:46:09
Speaker
that Jewish wedding in some way, right? Some element of Jewish stuff at their wedding, but it's not enough to call the rabbi and it's not enough to whatever, but they're still looking for a way to do that, right?
00:46:22
Speaker
And forgive me, but some of the ah resources that we have that are enshrined are not really dynamic resources, like I said. So you know the the holy grail books the Jews have, tongue in cheek, holy grail, um books the Jews have for Jewish weddings, they are a bit frozen in time. There are um websites like Smashing the Glass that will show you Jewish weddings and talk about stuff like that. There are some resources like 18 Doors that are putting out new information.
00:46:51
Speaker
But it's just you know simply put, it's not a lot in terms of resources. And most importantly, I think for contemporary couples is that those resources are not super highly personalizable. Is that a word? there's not There's not a large possibility of personalization for those resources. So I've been trying to think of ways that I can make
00:47:17
Speaker
resources that are fully customizable to the couple that, that takes advantage of them and make those available to everyone in a way that is the exact way they need for their Jewish wedding.
00:47:37
Speaker
So people do go to my website. Okay. Your Ohio rabbi.com or our favorite rabbi.com. You can find me there. People do go there. Like the SEO on my website has been up. The search engine optimization, my visibility has been way up. I think I'm and like number one in a lot of Google search results. Great for me. Um, that means a lot of people are finding me from my website. A lot of people are looking at it. And what I really want is for that if someone goes to my website and for whatever reason goes there and decides that working with me is not for them.
00:48:17
Speaker
Like, they don't like my smile on the landing page, which it is a little toothy, you know. um They don't like that I'm a woman. That's happened a couple times in the in the past year, past years, that people have decided to not have me at their wedding because it's just too much. It's not it's not traditional enough, which is fair. um Whether, for whatever reason, I'm too expensive, I'm too far away, whatever it is,
00:48:46
Speaker
I want them to not leave. I want there to still be a reason for them to stay connected to that site because it gives them some value that will help them plan a Jewish wedding even if they're not going to plan it with me. So you guys already know that I ah do offer a consultation service. I think it's not really clear what that would mean for people. So I'm thinking about you know, offering some of my consultation services free of charge for some couples who would like to consult with a rabbi on their ceremony, but who don't want that rabbi to physically be at their ceremony for whatever reason, and to sort of get their feedback on what that experience was like.
00:49:36
Speaker
um really make that a marketable thing for people to take advantage of so that they can have that Jewish wedding and they can actually have a Rabbi Leon wedding without going to all the trouble and effort to bring me physically to their wedding. I i also think that there's a lot of space in wedding planning now. A lot of people are getting You know, their friends, family, whatever, to be the officiant at their wedding, maybe it's something that they've dreamed of for a long time, maybe it's really important to them, but when it comes right down to figuring out what that officiant is going to say, it can be kind of tough. I have been seeing online there are, you can Google a Jewish wedding ceremony script.
00:50:16
Speaker
and find a Jewish wedding ceremony. In fact, you can even buy one for $19.99 on Etsy. Now, I looked at the preview of specifically um the downloadable ones on Etsy. I'm pretty sure that it is AI generated now.
00:50:36
Speaker
And I say that I'm pretty sure that it's AI generated because I myself went to chat GPT and I asked her, chat GPT, will you please give me an example of a Jewish wedding ceremony script? And it was pretty close in tone and cadence and structure to the preview of the one I saw on Etsy. I'm not saying for sure anything, but it is my suspicion that a lot of people who are trying to sell you Jewish wedding ceremony scripts or any wedding ceremony script that, you know, it says on the listing, it's customizable and you can make any edits you want. I do think that it's heavily AI or maybe, God forbid, heavily plagiarized from other sources on the internet. Of course, you can Google Jewish wedding ceremony script and you can also find it on free sites. I think that American Marriage Ministry is maybe, you know, there's all these wedding websites that will help people figure out what they're going to say at a wedding.
00:51:33
Speaker
I think for the vast majority of people, that actually ends up working out kind of fine. However, if it's your priority to have a wedding that is authentic to a certain religion or tradition, those scripts are just not gonna cut it.
00:51:51
Speaker
You know, I see a lot of things on those scripts that um really don't get at the essence of what that part of the ceremony is about. It feels more sort of, we're going to do this blessing because it's part of the traditional Jewish wedding and not because of what it might mean or in any context or how it reflects on the lives we want to live going forward.
00:52:20
Speaker
or how it can really feel like us. So an example is, um, kiddish, right? The blessing over wine at a Jewish wedding. That's in almost every Jewish wedding ceremony scripts that you Google the blessing over wine.
00:52:36
Speaker
I want that blessing over wine to be something that you guys understand why you're doing it at your wedding. It carries emotional weight for you because whoever's talking about it has related it to your lives in the past and your lives going forward and maybe has invited a participant from your, from among your guests and talked about how that is a significant person to be doing this ritual.
00:53:06
Speaker
None of those Googleable wedding ceremonies include any of that. And what I don't want for you is to have a Jewish wedding that is merely symbolic. I don't want you to have a Jewish wedding that you planned based on a Google search history so that you could tell people, yes, we had a Jewish wedding. Please.
00:53:30
Speaker
If it's important to you, you know treat it like it's important to you. And my goal going forward between this podcast and other resources that I'm going to make available to people is to figure out how people can DIY even that part of their wedding, how I can help people from afar, whether it's through um digital resources or consultation services or anything like that, how I can really give them that personal connection to their wedding or their baby naming or whatever without them actually having to work with me one-on-one if for whatever reason that's something they don't want to do.
Future Plans and Listener Engagement
00:54:11
Speaker
So if you have any feedback on that things that have been helpful for you in DIYing parts of your wedding where you maybe you didn't hire the professional to do it but you still felt like whatever resources you were able to get for that part of your wedding made it so that you did really well, and that it actually turned out just fine and exactly the way you would have wanted it and that those tools gave you the capability to to do that for yourself. If you have feedback on experiences have you had with things like that, whether it was consultations or downloadable resources or podcasts or books, please email me and let me know your experience. It would help me so much. Your Jewish Wedding Podcast at gmail dot.com. So to help me make
00:54:58
Speaker
your Jewish wedding ceremony planning experience, the best experience it can be for you. um That's what I want to help with, okay, with the podcast. So on that note, I do have plans going forward. This is not, we're not dangling off a cliff here, okay? The podcast will come back. I don't know if it's gonna be like every week or two, like it had been for a while, but I do have a few episodes in the tank.
00:55:24
Speaker
I have recorded an episode on Tanayim which is breaking the plate before the Jewish wedding which is an old old Ashkenazi tradition that I've been seeing more and more couples take advantage of.
00:55:37
Speaker
um That was actually a request, I think, via Instagram. Somebody asked the question about breaking the plate in this. I mean, it had to be months ago. I'm very, very sorry. i I have forgotten your name, but whoever you are, there are also some more guest episodes in the tank. So I've got Renee Dallow, who is a wedding professional. She lives in California, I believe. And a couple of wedding story episodes, Jewish wedding story episodes, where we talk about people's amazing Jewish weddings.
00:56:03
Speaker
And I am also going to continue forward with going through each and every step of a Jewish wedding in the same exact way I would do it if you and I were planning your Jewish wedding together. Not the same exact way, actually, because I never talk about things for hours on end, but I will be talking about kiddush, for example, the blessing over wine, for let's be real, probably at least two episodes, so get excited for that. um There's an episode that I really, it's really important to me to record especially if you're DIYing your wedding ceremony, which is the episode on the vibe of your wedding ceremony. What is the vibe of your wedding ceremony and how ah determining that before you plan anything that anyone is going to say at your wedding can really be a game changer for the way that your ceremony looks, sounds, and feels to you and your guests. And we will obviously keep going through any
00:56:57
Speaker
contemporary or like current events issues that arise as they arise, please God, they should not be so pressing for the Jewish people. Let's let's you know send all of our best hopes and thoughts and prayers.
00:57:13
Speaker
for only good things for the Jews going forward. Okay. Please God, because I love the work that I do. I want American Jews and Jews around the world in the diaspora to please God continue living in a country and a society. that accepts us and loves us and lets us live among them in peace, security and prosperity and continue being wonderful, productive members of the society of which we are a part.
00:57:49
Speaker
please God, that that we should have only good things for the Jews going forward, and we shouldn't have too much hand-wringing to do about all that. So most of all, in closing of this podcast, I know it's incredible. How long have I been here?
00:58:03
Speaker
Almost an hour talking about just updates. Just updates, guys. It's okay. We all need to do this work sometimes, right? But most of all, in closing, I really do want your feedback. I really want your feedback, especially, especially, okay? Don't be scared. If you're not going to work with me, even if you're not going to work with any rabbi, even if you're not even sure that you want a Jewish wedding, okay? I want your feedback.
00:58:30
Speaker
Because that is what I consider personally, like on a personal note you guys, personal rabbi note. In my kishkas, in my gut, I feel that I can be helpful. And I can be a point of connection. A point of Jewish connection for people who are you know, planning a wedding or planning a life together, and they're just not sure how they're gonna keep this Jewish thing as part of it, but they really want to. And that's all they know. That's what I really consider my why. that My reason for doing the work that I do every single day
00:59:06
Speaker
is to create that connection, to create that bridge and to make it so that nobody feels ashamed, embarrassed, um uninformed, illiterate, whatever it is, that they feel that they really have a buy-in to their Judaism, they really have a connection and that they are going to be able to move forward confidently with Jewish stuff in their wedding, in their home life, in their future plans, whatever that looks like. And I'm trying to figure out the best way to be that rabbi for all of you. So please send me your feedback at yourjewishweddingpodcastatgmail.com. I want to hear from you. You can also go to my website, ourfavoriterabbi.com or
00:59:50
Speaker
yourohioravi.com since I am here in the state of Ohio currently. And you can go to the contact form there and send me a message. Now I will tell you, if I get a contact form in my inbox, I get kind of super excited because usually that means there's like a new couple who wants to talk to me about their wedding that I'm going to get to work with one-on-one. So I will still respond to you if you contact me through my website, that's absolutely fine. um But I will have, just so you know, full disclosure, I will have a little moment of, ugh, not a wedding.
01:00:18
Speaker
But there will be excitement that I get to get some feedback and talk to somebody new at the same time Also, if you have any ideas for future podcast cast episodes that you really want to hear that's the place to put them your Jewish wedding podcast at gmail dot.com and I am just going to close this episode with just the greatest hopes that all of this will go forward and only grow and only get to be a better and better touchpoint resource for people who want it to plan your Jewish wedding. So on that note, please, please remember, even if a podcast does not post for six months on end, there is always more learning to do.
01:01:07
Speaker
i'll See you Remember, always find me, Rabbi All one word for even more tips, tricks, recommendations, and wisdom on Jewish
01:01:48
Speaker
If you want to work with me on your wedding, you'll find all the info you need at yourohioRabbi.com. Until next time, remember, you deserve the perfect wedding for you. Don't settle for anything less.