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Wonders. Welcome

2:57

to Kelly Corrigan Wonders. I'm Kelly

2:59

Corrigan and today We begin

3:01

the second part of our

3:04

hard conversation series where we're exploring

3:06

what it takes to bridge

3:08

the most profound differences and how

3:10

in those extreme cases we

3:12

can muster curiosity, intellectual

3:15

humility, vulnerability, and forgiveness

3:17

to create meaningful

3:19

connections. So I was

3:21

at Aspen Ideas, I was watching

3:23

one of the speakers and

3:25

this rabbi came on stage. and

3:28

totally blew me away.

3:30

Her name is Sharon Brouse, and

3:33

she is so full of warmth

3:35

and wisdom that I stood around backstage

3:38

and waited for her to come

3:40

off so that I could grab her

3:42

and beg her to do this

3:44

show. She's the founding rabbi of

3:46

Ikar, a leading -edge Jewish

3:48

community based in Los Angeles, and

3:50

the author of the Amen

3:52

Effect, Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our

3:55

Broken Hearts and World. She

3:57

has blessed multiple presidents, offered the

3:59

invocation at the 2024 Democratic

4:01

National Convention, and has

4:03

been recognized as the

4:05

most influential rabbi in

4:07

America. Today, she shares

4:09

ancient wisdom about forgiveness and how

4:11

bearing witness to each other's pain

4:13

might be the key to healing

4:15

our divided world. Here's

4:17

my conversation with Rabbi

4:19

Sharon Brouse. So

4:25

I wanted to talk to you

4:27

about the ways that we think

4:29

about forgiveness in the ancient world

4:31

and in the modern world. And

4:34

there was a story you told

4:36

me last night when I met

4:38

you at that little cocktail party

4:40

that gave me the shivers. So

4:42

will you retell it about the

4:44

walking in circles? Yeah, yeah. So

4:46

this is an ancient ritual that

4:48

has been my North Star for

4:51

two decades. It was a

4:53

very obscure ritual that that

4:55

I came across first when I

4:57

was in seminary studying to be

4:59

a rabbi and didn't fully understand

5:01

it and then re -encountered it

5:03

about 10 years later after living

5:05

some life and experiencing loss and

5:07

love and helping officiate weddings and

5:10

burying people and it came across

5:12

this ancient texts that shares this

5:14

ritual. So in ancient

5:16

times, 2 ,000 years ago, when the temple

5:18

stood in Jerusalem, Jews used

5:20

to come from all across the land

5:22

and some from the diaspora. Hundreds

5:24

of thousands of people would ascend Jerusalem,

5:26

a city on a hill, and

5:28

then they would climb the steps of

5:30

the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And

5:33

they would enter into the most

5:35

sacred place on the most sacred days.

5:38

and they would go through this giant

5:40

arched entryway and they would turn

5:42

to the right and hundreds of thousands

5:44

of people would circle counterclockwise around

5:46

the courtyard of the Temple Mount. And

5:48

then they would exit right where they had come in.

5:50

It was like the Hodge, like the images that we see

5:52

from Mecca of just, and in fact,

5:55

when I was researching for my book

5:57

in which I wrote about this ritual,

5:59

I researched the Hajj and just

6:02

the spiritual and emotional power of

6:04

being part of that mass movement

6:06

of people, all moving in the

6:08

same direction, except for someone with

6:10

a broken heart. That person

6:12

would go up to Jerusalem, climb the

6:14

steps of the Temple Mount and enter

6:16

through the same entryway, but circle to

6:18

the left, circle clockwise. And

6:20

then the sacred encounter would occur

6:23

when this person is literally walking against

6:25

the grain, against the current, this

6:27

mass current of humanity. And

6:29

the people who are coming from the right

6:31

would look into the eyes of the bereft

6:33

and the bereaved and the ill and ask

6:35

them this very simple question. In

6:37

Hebrew, it's malach. Tell me what happened

6:39

to you. Tell me about

6:41

your heart. What hurts? And

6:44

this person would answer saying, I'm

6:46

a mourner. I'm grieving the

6:48

death of my father who died just before

6:50

the holidays this year. Or they would

6:52

say, I'm just really worried about my

6:54

kid. And I just need someone to tell me

6:56

that she's going to be okay, or I found

6:58

a lump. Whatever

7:01

the pain was, they would vocalize

7:03

that pain probably to a stranger. And

7:06

then that stranger would respond, looking in

7:08

their eyes by giving them a blessing. They

7:10

would say something like, may the one

7:12

who dwells in this place hold you with

7:14

love and care as you navigate this

7:16

difficult chapter. And then they would all move

7:18

on. And I realized that the power

7:20

of this ritual is that None of the

7:23

parties involved actually want to be doing

7:25

this because when we're brokenhearted and bereft and

7:27

bereaved, the last thing we want to

7:29

do is sometimes even get out of bed,

7:31

let alone show up in a place

7:33

where there are hundreds of thousands of people

7:35

and they're literally all moving in the

7:37

other direction. But the tradition

7:39

says you go and you show up

7:41

and you entrust your heart into

7:43

the tender care of community. And

7:45

when you're having the spiritual peak moment of

7:47

your life and you're moving to the right, you

7:50

know, from the right, and you

7:52

know, and you're having this spiritual ecstasy,

7:54

the last thing you want to do is

7:56

like peel away from your friends and

7:58

family and go check in on a stranger

8:00

who has puffy red eyes and say

8:02

like, hey, how's your heart? And

8:04

yet that's exactly what we're supposed to do. And

8:06

it feels to me like the call of

8:08

our time is exactly when we want to retreat

8:10

from each other. We have to

8:12

turn toward each other, and we turn toward

8:14

each other to see each other's pain and

8:16

each other's beauty, the bruises and the beauty. That's

8:19

hard, but the even harder part

8:21

is that sometimes the people who are

8:23

walking to the left are not the

8:25

brokenhearted and the bereft and the bereaved,

8:27

but they are people who are

8:29

ostracized from the community. That's the second. kind

8:32

of category of folks who turn to the

8:34

left. And those are people who've harmed us,

8:37

who've hurt us in word or in action

8:39

or have hurt the community. And

8:41

the tradition says that they too

8:43

turn to the left and walk

8:45

with the broken hearted. And these

8:47

are people whose behavior has been

8:50

so painful that generally speaking, we

8:52

don't engage them socially at all

8:54

anymore. It's quasi excommunication. And

8:56

yet they show up on that day,

8:58

on that holiest of days and that holiest

9:00

of sites, and they walk in the

9:02

direction of the bereaved, and they too are

9:04

met with curiosity and compassion and care.

9:06

And we say to them, tell me, what

9:08

do things look like from your vantage

9:10

point? How is your heart? And

9:13

they say, I've been ostracized from the

9:15

community, which means I did something to

9:17

harm the community, and they too are

9:19

blessed. And that feels

9:21

like such a radical

9:23

intervention. in our time saying, what

9:25

would it mean for us to look

9:27

to the people who have harmed us,

9:29

who see the world from a totally

9:31

different perspective than we do, instead of

9:33

shoving them out of the room and

9:35

saying, there's no room for you in

9:38

this tent, instead saying, tell me about

9:40

you. I see that you're in pain

9:42

just like I am. What

9:44

can we learn from each other? And

9:46

that, I feel, is the path

9:48

to forgiveness and to healing. It

9:50

must be so... enabling

9:53

and restorative and

9:55

protective for the

9:57

forgivers, because surely

9:59

they too will someday have a

10:01

broken heart or someday feel

10:03

that they have wronged. And to

10:06

know that it is likely

10:08

that at least in this place

10:10

they could be met with

10:12

a blessing and some modicum of

10:14

forgiveness just must make them

10:16

walk easier in their days. I

10:19

mean, this is the most powerful

10:21

thing about this ritual is that every

10:23

one of us in our life

10:25

at times walks to the right and

10:28

at times walks to the left.

10:30

And that's what it means to be

10:32

part of this sacred network of

10:34

humanity that we understand that sometimes I'm

10:36

caring for the bereaved and sometimes

10:38

like now I am the bereaved. And

10:40

for someone like me, my

10:43

instinct is not to be taken care

10:45

of. My instinct is to take care. You

10:48

like walking to the right? I mean,

10:50

by both character and profession. I walk,

10:52

I mean, I'm a rabbi, so I'm

10:54

really a pastor. I care for people.

10:56

And it's really hard to be cared

10:58

for. And yet you

11:00

realize that this is part of

11:02

this kind of unspoken human contract

11:05

that we take care of each

11:07

other. And sometimes we need to

11:09

be taken care of. And there's

11:11

a teaching in the Talmud that

11:13

says that a prisoner cannot free

11:15

themselves from prison. that we

11:17

need somebody to hold our hand and to

11:20

join us in the darkness and help

11:22

us heal. And so I

11:24

felt it as a mourner myself

11:26

this year that as much as I

11:28

resisted, I need to allow myself

11:30

to be held and cared for. And

11:32

it's also very meaningful for other

11:34

people to be able to help us

11:36

when we're grieving. And the same

11:38

is true for forgiveness. So the whole

11:40

system of forgiveness in Jewish literature

11:42

and theology is rooted in

11:44

the premise that we all make

11:46

mistakes, we're all flawed human beings,

11:48

and we have to create systems

11:50

through which we can re -enter some

11:53

kind of social harmony. We have

11:55

to be able to fix what's

11:57

been broken, and if we can't

11:59

fix it, at least honestly reckon

12:01

with it. And for me,

12:03

that's so powerful, both as somebody who's been

12:05

hurt and somebody who's caused hurt. And

12:07

so I think the people who are walking

12:09

to the right who see someone coming

12:11

from the left who's hurt them, there's a

12:13

little part of them that says, okay, this

12:16

could be me next year. I

12:19

could be the one who's done

12:21

some damage here, willingly or unwillingly,

12:23

and I wanna know that I'm

12:25

not. forever, you know,

12:27

that the people don't get thrown away, that

12:29

we're not disposable, but that there's a

12:31

way back into community. I think all the

12:33

time about Brian Stevenson and, you know,

12:36

every person is more than the worst thing

12:38

we've ever done. And

12:40

if we can believe that about others,

12:42

can we not also believe that about ourselves?

12:45

Right. And that's why if you

12:47

live in kind of a

12:49

righteous punitive way, you will also

12:51

be building up this well

12:53

of fear. that God help you

12:55

if you step out of line because you'll

12:57

be stoned. You will not be

12:59

welcomed back. The other

13:01

thing about it is that

13:03

it gives this beautiful agency

13:05

to the people who walk

13:07

to the right and a

13:10

little flutter of power that

13:12

kind of reminds me of

13:14

another thing that I love

13:16

about Judaism, which is the

13:18

two pockets thing. Will

13:20

you tell that? Yeah, yeah. There's

13:22

this Hasidic idea that every person

13:24

walks around with two slips of

13:26

paper, one in each pocket. And

13:29

one says, I

13:31

am but dust and ashes,

13:33

which is the ultimate

13:36

expression of humility, right? Like

13:38

my life in everything

13:40

that I yearn for and

13:42

love and even achieve, the

13:45

end of the day is really

13:47

temporary. And none

13:49

of us, none of us,

13:51

can outlive death. And

13:53

at the same time, in

13:55

the other pocket, we hold the

13:57

statement that says, bishvili nivraholam,

14:00

for my sake, the whole world was created. And

14:03

they're both true. The first

14:05

statement actually comes from Abraham when

14:07

he's negotiating with God in

14:09

the book of Genesis about the

14:11

deaths of, should Sodom and

14:14

Gomorrah be destroyed, these two cities.

14:16

And he stands before God and says,

14:19

I know I'm nothing. I know

14:21

I'm just dust and ashes, which ironically

14:23

is a statement of humility while

14:25

in the act of incredible audacity, because

14:27

he's saying, but you can't do

14:29

this terrible thing. But the

14:31

other statement actually comes from

14:34

the Mishnah, where the rabbi

14:36

say, every single person has

14:38

dignity. Every single person

14:40

is unique, is equal to

14:42

every other, and has infinite

14:44

worth, infinite value in the world. And so therefore

14:46

we have to wake up every day and say, the

14:49

whole world was created for me and for this

14:51

moment. So I love the idea

14:53

that we carry both at all

14:55

times. And it's both humility and also

14:58

human adequacy and assertion. And I can't

15:00

be everything, but I'm here right

15:02

now and I can be something. And

15:04

the way that I translate that

15:06

into the grief space and the sort

15:08

of discourse on human community and

15:10

comfort is, I can't actually take your

15:12

pain away. We want to

15:15

take each other's pain away, but we're

15:17

not here to fix each other. I

15:19

can't take your pain away. I am but

15:21

dust and ashes. But for my sake, the world

15:23

is created. There is something I can do.

15:25

I can bring you lasagna. I can sit by

15:27

your side and ask you stories about your

15:29

mother. I can tell you stories about my

15:31

father. You know, I can

15:33

cry with you in the dark of night.

15:35

And so that is holding both the humility, but

15:38

also not being imprisoned by the

15:40

humility and instead allowing us to

15:42

still take action in the service

15:44

of love. Yes. It's almost

15:46

like giving you a sense of agency. and

15:49

also tempering your expectations all at

15:51

the same time. In my mind,

15:53

I had translated it to eight

15:55

billion, just one. So there are

15:57

eight billion people in the world,

15:59

but there's just one you. And

16:02

so you show up and you do

16:04

what you can, you make your statements,

16:06

and then you remember

16:09

that there's seven

16:11

billion, nine hundred and

16:13

ninety nine million. other

16:16

people here making their statements and

16:18

they all matter. That's so

16:20

powerful. And a big, that's a

16:22

big mind shift of an idea. But

16:24

in the moments where you are in

16:27

that super humble space where you say,

16:29

this could be me, like, which is

16:31

a sort of a, that's like a

16:33

worldview that I really try to

16:35

hold, which is any one of us,

16:37

any one of the people that are

16:39

crossing my path could be me. So

16:42

I could be the best selling author.

16:44

And I could be the person asking

16:46

for a dime on the subway steps. And

16:50

if you really believe that,

16:52

it totally changes how you operate

16:54

in the world. Because as

16:56

you walk through the arch, you

16:58

think today right, tomorrow left.

17:00

Right. That's right. And I'll just

17:02

even push it to one

17:04

level more, which is if you

17:06

can't think that could be

17:08

me, maybe you can think that

17:10

could be my child. Right.

17:13

So in the book, I share this

17:15

story of a congregant of mine called

17:17

Hannah, who was this incredible woman. And

17:19

she was one day walking her dog

17:21

in the park near her house. And

17:23

she saw an unhoused young man on

17:25

a bench. And so she

17:27

went over and she started talking to him. And

17:29

his name was Ryan. And she

17:31

asked him if he would go out to

17:33

breakfast with her. And so. That's

17:35

so daring. Yeah. So she took him out to

17:37

breakfast. They talked for an hour or two.

17:39

She insisted. that he move into

17:42

her house and that he stay in the

17:44

spare bedroom in her house. And he

17:46

literally lived with her for a year. And

17:48

we, as her friends and as her

17:50

rabbi, I mean, we were terrified. We're like,

17:52

you don't know this guy. He could

17:54

take advantage of you like physically, materially in

17:56

any way. But she's like, he needs

17:58

somebody to believe in him. And

18:01

after a year, he got a job

18:03

and he got back on his feet

18:05

and Hannah died from cancer

18:07

almost a year and a half ago,

18:09

and he eulogized her, and he

18:11

said, that woman saved my life. And

18:14

I talked to Hannah a lot about it,

18:16

and I came to understand her son, her

18:19

Hannah's son, had died as a

18:21

young man about the same age

18:23

as Ryan from mesothelioma. And

18:25

I think on some level, when

18:27

she saw Ryan, she thought that could

18:30

easily have been my son. And

18:32

so she just, she expanded

18:34

the scope of moral concern to

18:36

hold this stranger. And

18:38

so I think like, can we

18:40

navigate, I mean, can we think

18:42

like, how would I want someone

18:45

to treat my child if they came

18:47

across my child on a bench? And

18:49

that might allow us to like have

18:51

that mental shift that you're talking about.

18:53

Right, right. Like can we leverage all

18:55

the love and intensity that we feel

18:57

about our own inner circle to, imagine,

19:01

have an emotional imagination that could include

19:03

people that are strange to us. Because I

19:05

do think that's how love works. I

19:07

think that if you want to be a

19:10

universalist, if you want to love the

19:12

world, you have to start by loving someone,

19:15

right? You gotta get your feet wet

19:17

with love. Yeah, and then you learn

19:19

like through my love of my children,

19:21

I have a much deeper connection to

19:23

children suffering and the need for children

19:25

to thrive throughout the world. And

19:27

it's not one or the other. It's one

19:29

and the other. It's precisely because I

19:31

love them so profoundly. Like every inch of

19:33

me is in love with my kids

19:35

that I feel such a deep love for

19:37

humanity. Right. Right. And for everyone

19:39

else, it's children. Yeah. Coming

19:43

up next, Rabbi Brouse shares

19:45

a powerful ancient ritual that shows

19:47

us how communities can make

19:49

space for both forgiveness and grief

19:51

at the same time. We'll

19:53

be right back with Kelly Corrigan

19:55

Wonders. You

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21:32

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21:35

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21:37

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21:39

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21:41

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21:43

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21:45

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21:47

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21:49

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21:51

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21:53

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21:55

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21:57

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22:01

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24:07

Religion Trust. Welcome back

24:09

to Kelly Corrigan Wonders. I'm Kelly

24:11

Corrigan, and I'm talking today with Rabbi

24:13

Sharon Brouse. She's the founding Rabbi

24:16

of ECAR, a leading -edge Jewish

24:18

community based in Los Angeles, and

24:20

the author of The Amen Effect, Ancient

24:22

Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts

24:24

and World. I want to mention in

24:26

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24:28

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24:30

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24:32

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24:34

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24:38

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24:40

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24:42

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24:44

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24:48

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to our list. Okay, let's get back

25:15

to my conversation with Rabbi Sharon Brouse.

25:21

I was thinking about Rwanda a little bit

25:23

when you were talking in the law

25:25

of the grass hill. Are you familiar with

25:27

this? So it's, you know, after the

25:29

genocide, Paul Kagami, the president,

25:31

worked with a lot of

25:33

people to create this program where

25:35

a person who had committed

25:37

atrocities could stand in front of

25:39

the community and look directly

25:41

at the surviving family members and

25:43

say, I killed your

25:45

mother. I raped your sister. I

25:48

burned your house. Will

25:50

you forgive me?" And then

25:52

the afflicted has the choice

25:54

to say yes or no

25:56

or not right now. And

26:00

so I once saw this

26:02

incredible little story that had

26:04

been given a film treatment

26:06

where this man had come

26:08

to this woman and made

26:10

this apology. And over

26:12

time, she said, okay, I forgive you

26:14

now, but I want you to put

26:17

your hut next door to mine. and

26:19

I want you to protect me in

26:21

the night, and I want you to

26:23

go and get my water for me.

26:25

You can do the five -mile walk." And

26:27

they became interdependent. They

26:30

recognized the potential that

26:32

their connection could heal both

26:34

of them for two

26:36

totally different kinds of suffering,

26:38

all in the same

26:40

interaction. That is

26:42

incredibly powerful. So

26:44

painful. And what

26:46

it requires is actually

26:48

rehumanizing another person. Right.

26:51

And rehumanizing yourself in the process. I

26:53

mean, I did a talk with Nick Kristoff

26:55

about his new book a couple of

26:57

weeks ago. And at the

26:59

end, you know, you have to end

27:01

with what gives you hope. And he ended

27:03

by sharing the story of this woman who

27:05

he wrote about. And I remember reading it

27:07

when he wrote about her years ago. but

27:10

she was living in Pakistan, and

27:12

her brother had committed some

27:14

crime or was accused of committing

27:16

a crime, and the punishment

27:18

was that the sister would be

27:20

gang -raped by several of the

27:22

officials in the town, and

27:24

she was. And they

27:26

thought that afterwards she would just

27:28

disappear into the woods somewhere and

27:30

die, but instead she sued them,

27:33

and it went all the way

27:35

to the Supreme Court, and she

27:37

won. And she won a cash

27:39

settlement against all of the officials

27:41

of her town. So she went

27:43

back into the town and she

27:45

built a school where the children

27:47

of her perpetrators are educated because

27:49

she realized that there is no

27:51

future if we don't actually see

27:53

and engage each other's humanity. And

27:56

so, I mean, the story

27:58

is incredible. And

28:00

I think about that all the time.

28:02

I think in our different traditions,

28:04

we use the word forgiveness and the

28:07

language of forgiveness to mean different

28:09

things. For Jews, forgiveness is the last

28:11

stage of a very long process

28:13

of reconciliation and repentance that has to

28:15

do with accountability and responsibility and

28:17

healing and verbally confessing and turning your

28:20

heart and turning your mind, et

28:22

cetera. And at the end,

28:24

you might achieve forgiveness after all

28:26

of that, but it's the process.

28:28

It's called chuvah. The process is

28:30

the powerful part because it's about

28:32

transforming yourself into a different person,

28:34

rehumanizing yourself or rebirthing yourself in

28:36

some way. And that's

28:39

what creates the possibility of healing

28:41

with a person who has

28:43

been harmed. Well, let's slow down

28:45

and take us through that process. Take us

28:47

through those steps. That's really interesting. So I

28:49

love a process. I love a list. One

28:52

of the great Jewish

28:54

teachers, a rabbi named Maimonides

28:56

Rambam, great medieval Jewish

28:58

philosopher, tried to codify this

29:00

process into several steps and steps that

29:02

must be done with utter sincerity

29:05

because you can't go through the motions

29:07

here without meaning it in your

29:09

heart and achieve the outcome. It's a

29:11

spiritual process as much as it's

29:13

a social process and recreating social harmony.

29:16

So you have first have to stop the

29:18

bad behavior. you can't make

29:20

chuva or go through repentance unless you

29:22

stop the behavior. He says, if you

29:24

go into the same hotel room with

29:26

the same, I mean, this is middle

29:28

ages, so he probably didn't say hotel,

29:30

but if you're in the same room

29:32

in isolation with the same person that

29:34

you had the affair with and walk

29:37

out of the room, not because you're

29:39

gonna get caught, but because you know

29:41

it's not the right thing, then that's

29:43

what it means to stop the behavior.

29:45

So have to stop the behavior, you have to

29:47

regret it. in your heart, like really be remorseful

29:49

in your heart. This is reminding me a little

29:52

of AA. Yeah. Yeah. There's a

29:54

lot of overlap here. Well, all good ideas.

29:56

They're so good. You find them everywhere.

29:58

Yes. You have to

30:00

say out loud what you've done. Yes.

30:02

You can't hide from it. This

30:04

is what's so important. I mean, I've

30:06

applied this formula both to the

30:08

reintegration of former child soldiers in Sierra

30:10

Leone and Liberia, which was my

30:12

master's thesis when I was in grad

30:14

school in the late 90s. I

30:16

was in a master's degree in human

30:18

rights while I was finishing rabbinical

30:20

school. And I decided,

30:22

could these ancient ideas be applied

30:24

to a real contemporary conundrum? And

30:27

so I tried to look at

30:29

an application of these ideas on

30:31

a real life situation. And I

30:33

think they do work. I think

30:35

there's a lot of wisdom here.

30:37

But I've also tried to apply

30:39

this to the U .S. and

30:41

grappling with and reckoning with our

30:43

history here in the United States

30:45

and thinking about what it means

30:47

for people to try to move

30:49

from a broken past into a

30:51

new America without reckoning with that

30:53

past because a very significant piece

30:55

of this is verbal acknowledgement of

30:57

the wrongs done which is central

30:59

to the TRC process and central

31:02

to what you're describing in Rwanda. People

31:04

have to they have

31:06

to acknowledge that they've done harm.

31:09

And that has to be heard. That's

31:11

part of the healing process for

31:13

the victims and survivors. And it's

31:15

part of the healing process for the

31:17

perpetrator to be able to say, this

31:19

is part of me. I did this

31:21

and I don't want to be burdened

31:23

anymore by that terrible cruelty either. And

31:26

if you don't name it and they

31:28

forgive you, you know inside your

31:30

little tiny heart, the one that's like

31:32

in the middle of your outside heart

31:35

that They haven't really forgiven you because

31:37

you haven't really said it out loud

31:39

yet. So it's only, you can only

31:41

clear out your insides. If you say

31:43

the most horrible thing that you did,

31:45

then the person still says, okay,

31:48

I forgive you. Then it's like, but

31:51

if you sort of squirrel it away and

31:53

you don't really like put it in the

31:56

table between the two of you, then you

31:58

have to, you're stuck with it. It's still

32:00

in there. It's still unaddressed. Right, that's right.

32:02

And the end of the

32:04

process is recompense or reparations, making

32:07

good on the harm that

32:09

you've done. So it's easiest when

32:11

we think about material harm

32:13

because you can actually pay that

32:15

back. It's much harder when

32:17

you're dealing with physical and emotional

32:20

harm. Though there are

32:22

some formulas that the rabbis, they were

32:24

systems thinkers and so they try

32:26

to calculate, you know, these are even

32:28

the ancient rabbis 2 ,000 years ago.

32:30

There are five categories of damage

32:32

when someone commits a sexual assault, for

32:35

example, that have to do with,

32:37

you know, loss of time at work,

32:39

emotional pain, physical pain, like they

32:41

deal with all kinds. What is a

32:43

compensatory structure that would actually help

32:45

a person feel whole again? And they

32:48

also say that there is no

32:50

chuvag mora, there's no full full, complete

32:52

healing after a murder, after certain

32:54

kinds of crimes, because you can never

32:56

fully repay. So then what

32:58

you do is as much as

33:00

you can to reclaim social harmony

33:03

and to dedicate your life to

33:05

truth telling, to trying to

33:07

prevent other people from engaging in the

33:09

kind of harm that you did, to

33:11

trying to engage in a reparation strategy.

33:13

But you know that I can't ever

33:15

get my love to him back. And

33:17

so you can't ever be fully, fully,

33:20

fully reintegrated

33:23

in some way, spiritually

33:25

reintegrated. After that

33:27

whole process, it's five steps,

33:29

that's when forgiveness comes. So

33:32

in our tradition, so I know in some traditions,

33:34

I've heard people even after mass shooting, where

33:37

they say, we forgive

33:39

the perpetrator. And for us,

33:41

it doesn't, it wouldn't work in that

33:43

direction. Forgiveness is at the end of the

33:45

long period of the long process. And

33:47

also, the process is worthwhile in its

33:49

own right, even if you don't achieve

33:52

the full forgiveness at the end. That's

33:55

where the transformation and the healing

33:57

is able to happen. And that

33:59

just requires such a terrific amount

34:01

of patience on the part of

34:03

the person who did the harm.

34:05

And that's such a terrible state

34:07

of being. Like even just making

34:10

a tiny mistake with someone, I

34:12

feel so agitated and I'm so

34:14

impatient for them to respond to

34:16

my text. Right. And

34:18

let me be free of these horrible

34:20

feelings of, I mean, it's like

34:22

being, for me, it feels like

34:25

I'm being flooded with caffeine and adrenaline.

34:27

Like, oh my God, oh my God.

34:29

Like, why have you written back? Like,

34:31

I'm so sorry. How should I say

34:33

it a different way? And so you

34:35

can imagine if you really did something

34:37

that you were like the sensation of

34:39

being at a step with humanity and being

34:41

at a step with your own values, the

34:44

bodily harm that it's

34:46

doing. is

34:48

severe. I'm the same as

34:50

you are. And I feel when I realize that

34:52

I've hurt someone, I'm consumed by it. I can't

34:54

think about anything else. And I just want to,

34:56

I'm the opposite of a conflict of waiter. Like

34:58

I want to get into it and resolve it.

35:01

And let's just be honest and let me apologize.

35:03

we ever get mad at each other, we're gonna

35:05

burst it out. But so

35:07

this is part of what you were saying earlier

35:09

about, you know, the

35:11

recognition that in life, we all

35:13

sometimes move to the right, and

35:15

we all sometimes move to the

35:17

left, we're all mourners at some

35:19

point, and we all have the

35:21

opportunity be comforters. We

35:23

are all forgivers, and we all need

35:26

to be forgiven. And so, I mean,

35:28

this is something that I think Jewish

35:30

law does really, really well. But

35:32

there's even a system of, it's called

35:34

tochicha, it's loving rebuke. When someone has harmed

35:36

you, you don't just sit with the

35:38

pain, you have to bring it to them

35:40

because they're human. And they made

35:42

a mistake and give them a chance to

35:44

make chuva, to go through this process. So

35:47

if I am hurt by you, I have

35:49

to call you and say, by the way,

35:51

something you said in that conversation really upset

35:54

me, which nothing has so far. But

35:56

because, and I've been on

35:58

the receiving end of those phone

36:00

calls and my overwhelming feeling

36:02

aside from like, oh my God,

36:05

you know, like. I feel

36:07

so bad that I hurt you is thank

36:09

God you just told me so that

36:11

we could work on this together and I

36:13

can apologize and I can take responsibility

36:15

or do the work. So that gives us

36:18

the chance to make things to be

36:20

made whole and to make someone else whole

36:22

if possible again. Yeah. And it blocks

36:24

you from creating like a follow on anger.

36:26

So one time I found out like

36:28

12 years after I had said something that

36:30

I had said something that really bothered

36:32

somebody. And it was like 12 years,

36:35

like you let us go on for 12 years. Like why

36:37

don't you just tell me? So

36:39

instead of dealing with what

36:41

I said, I flipped immediately to,

36:44

well, come on, like you got to tell me so

36:46

I can make good on this. And

36:48

that's a deflection. I mean, that's a way of

36:50

not working through it in my own mind of

36:52

like, wow, what would that feel like to have

36:54

someone say that to you? And how could that

36:56

be really problematic for her? And how would that

36:58

like stick in her craw? You

37:00

know what I mean? This is why

37:03

rebuke is a positive affirmative obligation. Why

37:05

it's, I mean, loving rebuke and you have to

37:07

do it in a way that the other person

37:09

can hear. Yes. You do it in the form

37:11

of a question, like the rabbis are, again, systems

37:13

thinkers, so you say, when

37:15

you said this thing, it hurt me. Why did

37:17

you say it like that? But you

37:19

have to say it in a way they can hear. But

37:21

this is why, this is one

37:23

of the reasons that the rabbi say,

37:25

and this is again, this is medieval, a

37:28

medieval read on a verse in Leviticus

37:30

that says, hocheach tochecha tamitecha, surely you shall

37:32

rebuke your fellow. So the rabbi say,

37:34

that means if someone hurt you, you don't

37:36

wait 12 years. One of the reasons

37:38

why, is because, you know, they're

37:40

a human and you want to give them

37:42

a chance to be held. The other is

37:44

because you're going to build up such an

37:46

anger and 12 years. If you're holding a

37:48

grudge for 12 years, you're going to be

37:50

reinforced in that grudge. You're going to find

37:53

evidence to prove that, you know, that your

37:55

friend or your former friend is truly insensitive

37:57

and truly doesn't care. And then

37:59

they say the sin, you will bear the sin

38:01

on your own shoulders. What

38:03

happens is so much resentment builds

38:05

that one or both of you is

38:07

going to behave badly toward the

38:09

other in the end, as opposed to

38:11

calling your friend up and saying,

38:13

that really hurt. Can you tell me

38:15

more? hated that when you said

38:17

that. Yeah, exactly. And then you get

38:19

an opportunity, a chance to heal. It's

38:22

hugely loving and optimistic. Yeah.

38:25

It is. It's like, I really want to be

38:27

in relationship with you. I really care about our

38:29

friendship, so I'm willing to say this hyper uncomfortable

38:31

thing, which is, God, I hate it when you

38:33

said that. And not everyone reads it that way,

38:35

but that's the design of the system. I

38:37

love these systems. I know, do. think

38:41

this is how Jews survived through

38:43

thousands of years of persecution and oppression.

38:45

I mean, they would retreat from

38:47

the public square into the Batemijerash,

38:49

the house of study, and they would...

38:51

study and create systems of like,

38:53

how do we build a society that's

38:56

actually rooted in our values? And

38:58

I think some of this emerged

39:00

from that, you know, like being alive

39:02

in really difficult times. But as

39:04

a result, I'm thinking of like two

39:06

stories. One, there was

39:08

somebody who hurt me very, very badly

39:10

when I was like 19. And

39:13

it was, I lived

39:15

deeply in that pain for

39:17

11 years. I

39:19

mean, I thought about it. I went to therapy for

39:21

years. I talked to, like I was processing that pain

39:23

for a very long time. It was like an open

39:25

wound. And then he came into

39:27

town and asked if I would meet

39:29

him for coffee. And we sat at

39:31

a cafe and my hand was like

39:33

shaking. And he said, I'm

39:35

so sorry for the pain I

39:37

caused you. And he

39:39

said he had gone on to become a

39:41

peacemaker. Like he was traveling around and

39:44

helping people make peace. And he said he

39:46

realized that at the heart of it,

39:48

he was trying to navigate the pain that he had caused me.

39:50

And he couldn't make peace in the world until he made

39:52

peace with me. And I felt

39:54

all the pain lift. And I

39:56

was like, oh, he just,

39:58

he did juva. He went through

40:00

this process and I forgive

40:02

him. And I was done.

40:05

I was done with the pain. Like

40:07

he freed me in a way. He

40:09

freed me from that pain, and I think I

40:11

freed him too. I think that he was no

40:13

longer burdened by the pain he had caused, that

40:15

I was no longer burdened by the pain I

40:17

received. It was an incredible... I

40:19

mean, I wanted to... I wanted to dance.

40:21

Like I felt my feet off the ground.

40:23

It had been lifted. And I know that

40:25

not everybody gets to have the person who

40:27

hurt them go through that process and sit

40:30

with them. But all the more so, I

40:32

was reinforced that we need to become the

40:34

people who do that for others because it

40:36

actually works. It matters. So that

40:38

was. And there's no expiration date. You

40:40

could go to somebody 30 years down

40:42

the road and say, I haven't stuff

40:44

and even in some ways it might

40:46

even feel more powerful to say

40:48

I have been holding this Yes, and

40:51

I know this was wrong and I'm

40:53

so ashamed and I should have said

40:55

this 29 years ago But I'm here

40:57

and you don't have to forgive me.

40:59

I just want you to know I

41:01

had I have not forgotten even to

41:04

the deathbed Even to the deathbed and

41:06

those are those beautiful stories and and

41:08

what Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky would

41:10

tell us is that how things end

41:12

matter. Yes, they kind of an disproportionate

41:15

impact on our levels of contentment

41:17

and satisfaction in our tiny heart in

41:19

the middle of our big heart. And

41:22

so that's why these deathbed

41:24

moments can be so powerful. We

41:26

had Jed Apatow on the

41:28

show and he talked about his

41:30

mother leaving when he was

41:32

a new teenager. And at

41:35

the end of her life, apropos of

41:37

nothing, as she was dying, she

41:39

said, I only meant to be gone

41:41

for two weeks. And

41:45

he said, oh that we would

41:47

be able to say these things

41:50

to each other sooner. Yeah, and

41:52

yet Better to have said it.

41:54

So there so can we talk

41:56

about deathbeds for a moment? Sure

41:58

So some years ago. I read

42:00

a book by dr. Ira Bayak

42:02

who's one of the leading voices

42:04

in palliative care Who wrote a

42:07

book called the four things that

42:09

matter most? in which

42:11

he talks about having walked with

42:13

thousands of people through the final

42:15

chapter. And he recognized that

42:17

there were four things people need to hear

42:19

before they die. And those things are, please

42:22

forgive me, I forgive you,

42:25

thank you, and I love you. And

42:28

I realized, and I was

42:30

so moved by this, and

42:33

I realized that those four

42:35

things actually map pretty

42:37

perfectly onto the traditional

42:39

Jewish deathbed, confessional.

42:42

It's called the Vidui. It's

42:44

literally broken into

42:46

statements of asking

42:49

for forgiveness, expressing

42:51

forgiveness, expressing

42:53

gratitude, and expressing love. And

42:56

so, We actually created this deathbed liturgy

42:58

that people can read with loved ones

43:00

at the bedside in which they say

43:02

those four things. And then the fifth

43:04

thing, which I added, which I think

43:06

is have now having done this with,

43:08

you know, for 20 years with many

43:11

people essential, which is I release you,

43:13

I release you from this world. And

43:15

because I think so often people don't,

43:17

they don't know that they have permission

43:19

to go and they need to know.

43:22

So what's really interesting

43:24

to me about this deathbed

43:27

ritual is that we as Jews have

43:29

this very complex system where you have to

43:31

first stop the behavior and then regret

43:33

it in your heart and then regret it

43:35

in your, you know, stop thinking about

43:37

it and, you know, yearning for it. And

43:39

then you have to verbally confess and

43:41

then you have to do recompense. So we

43:43

have this complex system, but then you're

43:46

on the deathbed and you didn't do the

43:48

work and you're about to die. So

43:50

what do you do? And you

43:52

say, please forgive me, right?

43:54

Like you, And it totally,

43:56

in a way, like undermines the

43:58

whole system, but in a way,

44:00

it's this acknowledgement that you don't

44:02

want to take this to the

44:04

grave and neither do you. Neither

44:06

does the dying and neither does

44:08

the loved one. And

44:10

so what can we close now

44:12

instead of leaving it open

44:15

for the rest of all time?

44:17

And I found it to

44:19

be such a powerful ritual to

44:21

give people, to give them

44:23

the permission to say

44:25

please forgive me for dot dot

44:27

dot and then people say you

44:29

know in the final moments like

44:31

for these things that I did

44:33

to you and and I forgive

44:35

you mom or dad or sister

44:37

brothers about whatever I forgive you

44:39

for these things I don't want

44:41

to remember you only through the

44:44

harm that we did to each

44:46

other I want I just think

44:48

it's amazing how much it normalizes

44:50

human limitation and flaw like it's

44:52

It just assumes that there's things

44:54

to be forgiven on both sides

44:56

for everyone. Right. And I

44:58

sometimes have people who say, we

45:00

don't need this forgiveness piece. We're

45:03

good. We've said everything, you

45:05

know? And I

45:07

suppose I could imagine some relationship

45:09

somewhere where there's no need for

45:11

forgiveness or just a lot of

45:13

work's already been done, but the

45:16

overwhelming majority of people. For

45:18

me, myself, I found that

45:20

there's such a power in bringing

45:22

forgiveness into that final moment. And for

45:24

me, I had such a beautiful

45:26

relationship with my father. And I mean,

45:29

it was so uncomplicated. We had

45:31

a really uncomplicated love. It's exactly the

45:33

word I used to describe my

45:35

relationship with my dad. Really?

45:37

We're so lucky. So uncomplicated. Yeah. I

45:40

just adored him and I know

45:42

that he loved me so much

45:44

and he was proud of me.

45:47

He grew and changed and learned.

45:49

And I love that he was

45:51

able to do that, especially later

45:53

in his life. And I feel

45:55

like he saw me. He

45:57

knew who I was in the world. And

45:59

he really was very, he was so good

46:01

to me. And I just loved who he

46:03

was. I mean, we were so different. And

46:05

I just loved who he was in the

46:07

world. But still in

46:09

those final days when

46:11

he was going and... I

46:14

told you he had a really good death,

46:16

like, you know, a

46:18

very painful last few years, but

46:20

the last few days were surrounded

46:23

by love and song. But

46:25

I, when I said, please forgive

46:27

me, I meant it. I mean, even though

46:29

I thought we had nothing that was still

46:31

open and, you know, there was, there's no,

46:33

I wasn't holding any grudge or any pain

46:35

or anything from him, but. Still,

46:38

to be able to say, I

46:40

know that there were times, like

46:42

in the course of a 50

46:44

years of relationship, there are always

46:46

going to be times when we

46:48

hurt each other unwittingly or, you

46:50

know, unwittingly. And so please, like...

46:52

sorry, please hear me say I'm

46:54

sorry. And also, I forgive you

46:56

because you were imperfect as great

46:58

as you were. You were imperfect

47:00

like we all are. And there's

47:02

still power in saying it, even

47:04

when we're really okay. And

47:06

then most people aren't really okay

47:08

in what we see more often than

47:10

not. And these are actually the

47:12

people who struggle the most in loss

47:14

are the people who have really

47:16

hard relationships. I think

47:18

that they feel a lot of regret

47:20

after the death. Like we didn't fix this

47:23

thing before they died. And so this

47:25

ritual feels like an opportunity to use the

47:27

last days or weeks and sometimes months

47:29

to do that work and say it out

47:31

loud. It doesn't have to be said

47:33

only in the last couple hours. I mean,

47:35

you can say it for weeks. In

47:37

fact, we should be saying these things to

47:39

each other every day. Please forgive me. I

47:42

forgive you. Thank you. I love you. These

47:44

are things that it would be very helpful

47:46

to engage our loved ones with more often.

47:49

But even knowing that this is a

47:51

liturgy that we can take on

47:53

as we near the end gives people

47:55

permission to center forgiveness and gratitude

47:57

and love in a way that I

47:59

think transforms that final chapter. Coming

48:03

up next Sharon shares

48:05

a family tradition that celebrates

48:07

seeing others and reveals

48:10

what might be the greatest

48:12

gift we can give

48:14

each other in moments of

48:16

darkness We'll be right

48:18

back with Kelly Corrigan wonders

48:20

So I am headed

48:22

out on the road I

48:25

have three huge trips

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coming up for work and

48:29

to treat myself and make the whole thing

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48:34

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returns. Quints.com slash wonders. Welcome

49:35

back to Kelly Corrigan Wonders. I'm

49:37

Kelly Corrigan and I'm talking with Rabbi

49:39

Sharon Brouse, founder of

49:41

eCar, and author of The

49:43

Amen Effect. She's helping us

49:45

figure out how to apply

49:47

ancient wisdom to these modern

49:49

times. My

49:52

husband and I did this makeshift 20th

49:54

anniversary thing during the pandemic where I

49:56

put on my wedding dress and he

49:58

put on his tuxedo and we just

50:00

had the girls and my cousin Lena

50:03

who lived with us. And we had

50:05

champagne and I said, let's just do

50:07

something like kind of to model for

50:09

the girls. Like what is, what does

50:11

a marriage involve? And it was to

50:13

say three things you're sorry for, three

50:16

things you're grateful for and three promises

50:18

for the future. And so he was

50:20

like, yeah, sure, we'll do it. And

50:22

I thought he's not really going to

50:24

do it. And then we got out

50:26

there and I said, you go first.

50:28

And he pulled out like a type

50:30

written thing. He had worked on it

50:32

all. And

50:34

he started the things he was sorry

50:37

for. I was like, oh my

50:39

God, that means more to me than

50:41

any of the rest. I

50:43

don't care about the thank yous.

50:45

And I don't care about the, the

50:47

promises were precisely tuned to your,

50:49

the steps in your process, which is

50:51

I'm not going to keep doing

50:53

the thing I'm saying I'm sorry for.

50:55

And I promised to, and it

50:57

was, I mean, it was really one

50:59

of the best. Best

51:01

couple hours of my life.

51:03

Oh, that's incredible and the girls

51:05

are I mean, I just

51:08

cried though. I mean, I'm an

51:10

easy I'm an easy tear

51:12

but It was it was really

51:14

powerful It's really powerful to

51:16

say I'm sorry to somebody knowing

51:18

that you would be forgiven

51:20

instantly Yeah, and then even just

51:22

the statement of it would

51:24

Convey to them. I know

51:26

I know I'm not like the greatest

51:28

person you married to 24 seven I

51:31

know that drives you crazy when I do this. I

51:33

know you wish I was more dot dot dot. It's

51:35

not like I'm oblivious to that. And

51:37

just knowing that they're not oblivious is so

51:40

thrilling. It's like, great. That's right. Then

51:42

you don't have to even be it

51:44

anymore. Now I don't even care if you

51:46

change. It validates me that you recognize

51:48

that this isn't like my favorite part of

51:50

you. This is going

51:52

to sound like a strange detour, but it's

51:54

really to your point. There's

51:56

the story about my grandparents. They loved

51:58

to travel together. And

52:00

once they were traveling in

52:03

Asia, and my grandma

52:05

saw this purse in the window

52:07

of a store, and she's like,

52:09

God, Sam, that's gorgeous, isn't it?

52:11

And he's like, come on, Millie,

52:13

we're late. And they kept walking. And

52:16

when she got home, she opened

52:18

her suitcase, and the purse was there.

52:20

Way to go, Sam. Way to

52:22

go, Sam. Yeah. And he was like

52:24

that. She always

52:26

said the power of that move,

52:28

it was like so not about the

52:30

purse. It was that he just,

52:32

he noticed her. Yes. Wanting something. Yes.

52:35

And he's like, I'm going to

52:37

sneak back over and get that for

52:39

her. And she felt so seen

52:41

in that, you know, in a very

52:43

material way. But what it did

52:45

was it sort of offered that there

52:47

was also a like a really

52:50

powerful attentiveness to each other's needs. And

52:52

so I really, I think

52:54

that's so powerful. Just naming, just

52:57

affirming, these are the things that I

52:59

think I do that are hard for you.

53:01

And I'm aware of what that means

53:03

to you. And these are the things I

53:05

do that I, these are the things

53:07

that you do that I appreciate in you.

53:09

Yeah. I think the apology is a

53:12

way of also noticing and seeing. Yeah.

53:14

Because it's like, I know what your values are. I

53:16

know what you care about. And I'm not apologizing for

53:18

something that you would be like, What?

53:20

Like, I didn't even care about that. Don't

53:22

even worry about it. Don't give it another

53:24

thought. I was saying what I was sorry

53:26

for and he was nodding like, damn right.

53:28

Damn right you should be sorry for that.

53:30

Like, you know, that is important to me.

53:33

So in that, even in the statement of

53:35

it, you're saying, I know what's important to

53:37

you. And I noticed you in those moments,

53:39

even when I'm being sort of defensive and

53:41

childish and... taking the easy road. I love

53:43

that so much. I feel like we should

53:45

all do that in relationships and friendships and

53:47

marriages. We have this ritual that we

53:49

do on Friday night, the

53:51

parental blessing, which actually comes straight

53:53

from the Torah, from the

53:55

priestly blessing in the Torah. And

53:58

so the parents put their hands on

54:00

the children's head and whisper this blessing.

54:03

And what we do in our

54:05

house is we first acknowledge something

54:07

that the kid did. during that

54:09

week that we saw that they

54:11

didn't know that we saw, something

54:13

that we're proud of and moved

54:16

by. It's an affirmation of like,

54:18

I saw that when, you

54:20

know, the other kid on the volleyball team

54:22

got injured, you were the first one over

54:24

there to check on them, you know, something

54:26

like that. And what it does is I

54:28

think it indicates like we, I see you.

54:31

I see you. And it's a similar kind of

54:33

affirmation to what you're saying. So we say

54:35

that before we say the, you know, the traditional

54:37

blessing. I was a coach,

54:39

JV LaCrosse coach for a couple of years

54:41

in our town in Piedmont, California. Because

54:43

you're the coach, you're very tuned

54:45

in to how much impact your words

54:47

have. Because you have these little

54:50

faces looking at you like, gosh, you

54:52

can start me on Thursday. And

54:54

so my favorite thing was to say,

54:56

after winning a game, first, I

54:58

want to start with Emma, who was

55:00

the first person here. She dragged

55:02

out the nets, which are very heavy.

55:04

And then I want to point

55:06

out that Jenny did all the ball

55:08

shagging in the first half and

55:10

having scoring and whatever the sort of

55:13

highest impact, most celebrated elements of

55:15

the game, let those go unsaid because

55:17

it was the thing that happened

55:19

before the goal that actually enabled the

55:21

goal. You are an incredible coach.

55:23

I mean, I feel like that's such

55:25

a powerful way to hold the

55:27

space that's so different from the way

55:29

that I think a

55:31

lot of coaches and

55:33

teachers and parents hold

55:36

space. And I sometimes

55:38

think that these small

55:40

moments where somebody sees

55:42

you in a way

55:44

that you don't think

55:46

anybody notices can be

55:48

totally transformative. I mean,

55:50

everyone I've ever interviewed has a moment. I

55:52

mean, you probably have one where somebody looked

55:54

at you and said something that you were

55:56

like, really? My daughters and

55:58

I were just talking about this.

56:00

And Georgia, my older daughter, said

56:02

that some parent, when she

56:05

was 14 years old, said, you're

56:07

the total package. And she

56:09

was like, I am holding that. I am living

56:11

into that. Oh, that's so good. And I

56:13

said, oh my god, I had this old boyfriend.

56:15

And his mom said, Kelly, you're special. And

56:17

I was like, I am? Oh my God. Wow.

56:20

Right. And there is no way that

56:22

Maureen Iker remembers saying to me,

56:24

Kelly, you're special. Right. And it doesn't

56:26

even matter, right? It doesn't. And

56:28

the small things that we say that

56:30

can either do real long -term damage

56:33

or can actually build someone's sense

56:35

of themselves. Totally. And yeah, I have

56:37

a moment that somebody shared once. We

56:40

were at a birthday party and

56:42

she fell. It's like 12

56:44

years ago or 15 years ago. And

56:47

everybody surrounded her, but

56:50

she said, she actually told

56:52

this, I remember it, but she told the story

56:54

to my mom when my mom said her name

56:56

and she said, oh, I know your daughter. And

56:58

so what happened was she fell and everybody ran

57:00

over to say, are you okay? But I sat

57:02

down on the ground next to her and she

57:04

said, your daughter like

57:06

understood. that what I needed was

57:09

not to have a bunch of people staring at me and

57:11

humiliating me because I was on the ground and they were up,

57:13

but I just needed someone to sit next to me until

57:15

I was ready to get up. And

57:17

I felt that, that you're

57:19

describing like the, like

57:21

all the things that someone could

57:23

say in an introduction or a eulogy,

57:25

you know, like an intro to

57:27

a big talk or a, you know,

57:29

I felt like, oh, that's, That's

57:31

how I want my kids to remember

57:33

me. At least my mom knows.

57:35

Now I'm saying it here for the

57:37

first time ever. But

57:40

that's the kind of thing

57:42

that matters more than

57:44

anything in the world. If

57:46

you in the moment,

57:48

you are special. Well,

57:50

or she's sat next to people. That's what we

57:52

should have on your headstone. She

57:54

sat next to people. Yeah. So

57:56

there, because you said that, I'm just

57:58

going to make this to our connection,

58:00

which I think is - Because you're

58:02

such a rabbi and you have to

58:04

it. You're such a rabbi. But I

58:06

also write about this, but there's this

58:08

incredible midrash, this rabbinic text. So

58:10

in the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve

58:13

are created on the sixth day. And

58:15

at the end of the day,

58:17

they spend the whole day in the

58:19

in the garden with the animals

58:21

and the trees and everything and at

58:23

the end of the sixth day

58:25

the sun starts to set but they've

58:27

never seen darkness before and Adam

58:29

freaks out he starts to get really

58:32

scared from the darkness and then

58:34

he grows increasingly terrified and he starts

58:36

to catastrophize like we do when

58:38

the darkness comes especially when we're not

58:40

used to it and he says

58:42

Is this my fault? What did I

58:44

do to deserve this?" And then

58:46

he says, the whole world's gonna end.

58:48

Like we're gonna go back to

58:50

Nell and Void. And Eve

58:52

just comes to him and sits

58:54

down across from him and cries with

58:56

him through the whole night until

58:58

the dawn comes. And I love this

59:00

story so much because she doesn't

59:02

say it's not your fault and she

59:04

doesn't say it's gonna be okay

59:06

and there's gonna be a new morning

59:08

tomorrow. She doesn't know. She doesn't

59:11

know any more than he does. She

59:13

just says, I'm right here. And

59:15

I just feel like, in some ways,

59:17

that's the greatest gift that we

59:19

can give to each other as human

59:21

beings. And it seems

59:23

so small and it's so significant. I

59:25

mean, that's the thing that's hard

59:27

to adjust to about the truth of

59:29

it, is that it actually feels

59:31

inadequate, it sounds inadequate, it sounds small,

59:33

it sounds sort of trite, and

59:35

yet, like it works every time. And

59:37

the person you sat down on

59:39

the ground with will never forget she

59:41

sat down next to me. It's

59:44

incredible. how impactful such a

59:46

seemingly small thing is. You're

59:49

lovely to talk to. Thanks for

59:51

doing this. Thank you so much. Come

59:53

back anytime. Here

59:58

are my takeaways from

1:00:00

my conversation with Rabbi

1:00:03

Sharon Brouse. Number

1:00:05

one, sometimes you just have

1:00:07

to get out of bed. And

1:00:09

when you do, trust your

1:00:11

heart to the tender care of

1:00:13

your community. Number two,

1:00:15

no prisoner unlocks their own cell.

1:00:17

Number three, sometimes you walk

1:00:19

to the right, sometimes you walk

1:00:21

to the left. Number

1:00:24

four, remember those two slips

1:00:26

of paper? The trick is

1:00:28

knowing when to pull out which one.

1:00:31

Number five, people want

1:00:33

to be seen, not fixed. Number

1:00:36

six, there has to

1:00:38

be a way to get

1:00:40

to social harmony that factors in

1:00:42

our flaws. Number

1:00:44

seven, when a person

1:00:47

falls, sit down on the

1:00:49

ground with them. Thank

1:00:51

you, Rabbi Sharon Brass. I

1:00:53

loved being with you. Thanks also

1:00:55

to Templeton Religion Trust for

1:00:57

supporting this episode and series. You

1:01:00

can learn more

1:01:02

by visiting templetonreligiantrust .org. Thank

1:01:05

you to the Aspen Ideas Festival,

1:01:07

where we recorded this episode, particularly

1:01:09

the always helpful Gabe Chenoweth. Thank

1:01:11

you to the team at Kelly

1:01:13

Corrigan Wonders, our technical producer, Dean

1:01:15

Kateri, executive producer, Tammy Steadman, as

1:01:17

well as Rachel Hicks and Charlie

1:01:20

Uppchurch, who help us stay connected.

1:01:22

Finally, thanks to you all for listening.

1:01:24

We'll be back on Friday with another

1:01:26

go -to, and on Sunday with another thanks

1:01:28

for being here. In the meantime, I'll

1:01:30

see you in our email. Hello

1:01:33

at kellycorrigan .com