God Crush

Embroidery, butterflies, glitter AKA the sacred canon

• Lura Groen and Ariana Katz • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Lura and Ariana talk about sacred text. Ariana shares a hand-clap to understand the Jewish cannon (in a non-visual medium...what a choice.) Lura and Ariana imagine what their clergy great/grandfathers would think about how they interpret and teach text. And the second installment of G-d/F&%k/Sh!t, a wholesome game for the whole family.

God Crush, a podcast about being in love with God, queer stuff, joy, justice, and chosen family, is coming soon! Hosted by Pastor Lura Groen (@lura.groen) and Rabbi Ariana Katz (@rabbiariana).

This podcast was recorded on Piscataway land, also known as Baltimore. We want to hear from you! You can email us at godcrushpod@gmail.com, and follow us on Instagram @godcrushpod. Leave us a voicemail at ‪(410) 929-5508‬.

Show artwork: Liora Ostroff, @lioraostroff
Music: "Testify" by Aves and Vincent Parker, @aves__music & @ultravincentr

Transcript of this episode can be found at: bit.ly/godcrushtranscripts

Ariana:

see a butt so good that your face has changed

Lura:

Ah.

Ariana:

in

Lura:

to the third episode of God Crush.

Ariana:

you

Lura:

show about being in love with God. Queer stuff, joy, justice, and chosen family.

Ariana:

to lose the

Lura:

pastor Laura Gruen in

Ariana:

and me, rabbi Ariana Katz.

Lura:

Best friends and clergy who live and serve congregations in the greater Baltimore area. today we wanna talk about our relationships with the sacred texts. I know as a Christian, the predominant Christian voices out there today talk so much about what the Bible says in ways that are so problematic for queer people and women and

Ariana:

Welcome back. We

Lura:

this,

Ariana:

will now go

Lura:

how the Jewish relationship with

Ariana:

back to

Lura:

than anything that I've been taught. So let's talk about it.

Ariana:

basic

Lura:

have a

Ariana:

exercises

Lura:

Christian sacred text, we mean the Bible and have a general consensus what that is. But when Jews say sacred text, like what do you mean? What if I ask

Ariana:

that we have been doing.

Lura:

or a Jew, are your sacred texts? What do you say?

Ariana:

As both, I would be honored to answer. so as both of you and a rabbi, A square's not a rectangle. I use this in my introduction to Judaism class and I say that I have taken, I would say maybe$300,000 of formalized Jewish education and distilled it into this hand clap to save you that money. So also tough. So, if you take your hand and you make a fist that is the Torah, and if you pretend that you had actually two more fingers on that hand, then it would be the 10. So TaNaK is Torah Ne and Tuve The five books of Moses Ne, and Tuve, the Writing Psalms limitations, so on. And that is the, the first layer, the foundation of what Jewish sacred text is. So for those of you at home who are able to do my hand clap with me please. So you have your fist of Tana, which is an abbreviation of, to, on top of that, if you cover your fist up with your hand, that hand is the mishna, which is the foundational text of Jewish law of rabbinic discussion and disagreement. That was codified around 200 ce. And you should pretend that this hand, or maybe it does, has six fingers.'cause there are six track tapes of the mishna and they pull from themes that, arise in the Torah, but are are also things that were happening either in the lived reality or the imagined reality of the rabbis at the time. And it blends the two together. And then if you have a friend put their hand on top of your two hands, that's the Gamara. And the Gamara was codified in 500 ce. And the Gamara is a discussion on the six track Ts of the mishna. If you took the fist out from the Mishna hand and the Gamara hand, hand and the Gamara hand together are referred to as the Talmud. So we've got the base layer is Ana. On top of that, we have Mishna, and on top of that we have Gamara, Mishna, and Gamara are referred to as the Talman. And surrounding a page of Talmud, which has, on it, Mishna and Gamara are commentaries from the mefor from the, the teachers and commentators that open up what the text means. Jews can't study Torah. They can't study the Torah portion from the weekly lectionary or the text at all without comment. And and without knowing what the teachers before us said. And so While those are the, the. First three layers of Jewish sacred text. The the whole thing is covered in the glitter of the of the commentators that say, okay, I know that it says dolphin skin. And you're saying, what? I'm gonna give you an elaborate reason as to why it means that it's the color of joy. And you're like, oh, great. That totally makes sense. Now it, you know, you gotta crack your head against it for a while. We've got hands covered in glitter. And then on top of that, imagine like a little butterfly comes in and she takes a little lick off of a finger on the gamara finger and a little lick off of a finger on the, the tanana finger. That is what I would talk about as Miro, maybe it's less of a butterfly and it's more of of like someone doing tiny little embroidery stitches or sewing up a hole. No, it's, you know, that beautiful Japanese art of mindful, visible mending

Lura:

Yeah.

Ariana:

you can see the I what Midras is. So midras is seeing a logical hole in the tanana, or seeing a place where you could make something beautiful and just show off your ho medical abilities and mindfully making a, illumination. And so Midras is another collection of sacred text. And then you've got the individual theological treaties of various rabbis. You've got the inheritance of the mystical tradition, the zohar works of Jewish mysticism. And then haha, haha is Jewish law. So back to my hand, clap. You've got fist of Torah. Fist of Torah, covered by the hand of Mishna, covered by the hand of the kamara and the mindful mending of the mid on the Torah hand. Then you have like, a hand that comes in and picks up the tip of the pointer finger and from it says, oh, well it says that you may not. Cook a cow in its mother's milk, that means that we have to separate our dishes. That means that you shouldn't wash them with the same sponge. That means X, Y, and Z. And so Halakha builds off of these nestled layers of law and commentary. The law of Torah and commentary to then create the am and the Jewish law that people who follow Halakha strictly or not strictly shalom will, will follow. So I would say you asked a Jew to explain what sacred text is, and I haven't even gotten to the gay stuff yet. Would say the transcript of the book.

Lura:

glitter and butterflies and six fingered hands. I think it's feeling a little bit beautifully queer.

Ariana:

That's true. Got Tan Mishna, Gamara, which is the Talmud. You've got mid, you've got Halaka, you've got mysticism, and then all of the other works of commentary and teaching. So that's what I would say is in the canon. And the canon is. Ever expanding, although there is a rabbinic concept of Yuri dha Doro, meaning that as the generations go on, we get farther and farther away from the the revelation at Sinai and the patriarch and matriarchs. Immediate face to face or face to, but communication with God. book is a tip about how Moses on the top of Mount Sinai was like, me your face. And God says, no, I'll show you my butt. not a, it's collection of transcripts. off commentary, so I'm My

Lura:

one of my favorite stories and it's amazing to teach kids.

Ariana:

name is see a butt so good that your face has changed

Lura:

Ah.

Ariana:

Alessandra.

Lura:

No, I

Ariana:

I

Lura:

but I would

Ariana:

am

Lura:

I mean, present company accepted. Of course.

Ariana:

so much. so yeah, so I would say And the Jewish canon. And then on

Lura:

That's you trying to describe it, not queer. And we were just talking about buts changing faces. I love,

Ariana:

I am a translator. I

Lura:

thoroughly queer. And rabbi, you are teaching us so beautifully right now.

Ariana:

So the last thing I'll say is like, Canon I think is such a a political concept and a personal concept. And so, in reconstructionist community there are some poets who are foundational liturgists for whom the work of. Marge Pearcy, Mary Oliver Octavia Butler. Andre Lorde, like their writing, their poetry, their prophetic storytelling becomes a part of texts that are formative. and frequently revisited. And I think that that's what I was alluding to of like, we've got the classical cannon and then every community has the poetry it expects. So the last thing I'll say on this is, for the last 18 months, one of the poems that we've been reading at Nu in our Prayers for Peace has been Yehuda AM's Wild Peace. it's become a part of our canon. I think, I think we could debate that a little, but it's become a part of our expected liturgy at least. And so I, I'm interested in how do you continue to build out a cannon alongside studying the original cannon, and when is it just a poem you like versus when is it a piece of cannon,

Lura:

Mm-hmm.

Ariana:

is like a category I'm really curious about?

Lura:

Yeah. That's beautiful. And when you first, I mean, I knew pieces of this before you and I were really good friends,

Ariana:

Yeah.

Lura:

I think it's so much more complex than what most Christians think. I.

Ariana:

Hmm.

Lura:

Jewish sacred text is and the unfolding of commentary and like, here's the revelation, and every generation is commenting on it. And that's important and sacred. And part of the revelation that just your way of explaining that is so beautiful to me. And so opposite of the incredibly simplistic way. Christians, and I think especially Lutherans, have simplified what we think

Ariana:

I am now

Lura:

unquote only the Old Testament that yeah, I just felt like we couldn't even talk, start off talking about what do our sacred texts mean to us without making sure that Christian listeners understood the

Ariana:

presenting the graduating

Lura:

the imagination and the beauty that's happening in what you're doing with your text that it's

Ariana:

class of 2020's

Lura:

we think

Ariana:

Wow.

Lura:

like

Ariana:

class of 2014.

Lura:

do with, with sacred text.

Ariana:

there's I have two anecdotes and it's gonna lead into a question. So, we have a a member of our community who is a Catholic deacon and he joined the community very early on. And I was like. What do, what do you do? And Joseph, this is cool. I like your cowboy hat. And he said, well, I'm a, I'm a Hebrew Bible scholar and I've been one my whole life. And I know that Judaism is not an. A dead religion or just in the history books or a predecessor to the Christian Bible. And I wanna be a part of a community that aligns with his values, but also that is alive Judaism. And, and it is such a, a tender, respectful, interesting way to to approach. How to be a multi-faith person or be a person in a multi-faith world. He also knows the most biblical Hebrew from anyone in the congregation, myself included. And then the other is that sometimes I explain to millennial femmes that Jews interact with Torah and the cannon like Cher does in Clueless, in which her father asks to see her report card she says to him, well, daddy, it's not finished yet. And. all of her grades are up for debate and negotiation, and I feel We are about the Torah Daddy, it's not finished yet.

Lura:

Hmm. Oh my goodness. Oh, that's so beautiful.

Ariana:

proud to I would love to hear. While we're almost this tip about talking about Supersessionism, can you explain to folks the difference between Hebrew Bible and Old Testament, and then also what's the language you use to talk about sacred books and

Lura:

Yeah.

Ariana:

depending on audience?

Lura:

Yeah. Oh my goodness. It changes depending on audience, I mean. I am arguing with a conservative online. I'm gonna say the Bible, right?

Ariana:

And that refers to the Christian Bible,

Lura:

Christian Bible, genesis through Revelation.

Ariana:

of

Lura:

my congregation about that as a collection of books. This is a library of books that we have and that all of them reveal God to us or God

Ariana:

And

Lura:

together.

Ariana:

engine, and

Lura:

of those books are in Hebrew Genesis through, oh shoot, what's is Malachi the last one?

Ariana:

Yeah

Lura:

Genesis

Ariana:

Text.

Lura:

us in Hebrew, although some of them have some complications where they're quoting. Other languages and it's a teeny bit more complicated than

Ariana:

Text,

Lura:

and that then the Matthew through Revelation comes to us in Greek, although some of it may have originally been an Aramaic. And so,

Ariana:

text.

Lura:

that we don't say Old Testament, new Testament because that sounds like some of them are lesser than others or like.

Ariana:

Text. Multiple text.

Lura:

sessions to say Old Testament, new Testament. There's nothing old about the scriptures that come to us in a Hebrew. They are alive, they're living, they reveal God to us.

Ariana:

I can hear text in

Lura:

Hebrew, we call them the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Bible, instead of saying Old Testament and New Testament and that every book in it,

Ariana:

the

Lura:

has ways that we. Encounter

Ariana:

but I

Lura:

read them, usually in community, but also when we read and study alone,

Ariana:

can't tell you what's going on I don't to the ept, which is the translation of the Torah into Greek.

Lura:

I'm

Ariana:

know what the text is, If

Lura:

the Greek Bible I say that's the quote unquote Christian scripture. So, Matthew, mark, Luke, and John, which are the gospels, the stories that have come down to us, the communities wrote about their experiences with Jesus. The

Ariana:

it's a

Lura:

a few other people wrote letters and the very early church

Ariana:

message,

Lura:

expounding

Ariana:

Survey.

Lura:

what the experience with Jesus means for us theologically means for us to live together in community. There's a lot about

Ariana:

Thank you for watching.

Lura:

God present with us in this way, then it means that the In this time and

Ariana:

transcript.

Lura:

specific church leaders to very specific communities. So say we say Paul wrote the letter to the Romans, well that's to the house churches in Rome. Ephesians is a letter to the House church in Ephesus. So we have those. And then we have a very weird book called Hebrews, which is not a letter, but is more of a theological treatise. And we have the book of Revelation, which is when John of Pat Moss goes to an island. He takes some magic mushrooms. He has an amazing experience with God and writes it down. And that is the Book of Revelations which is kind of a marginalized people's. Secret encoding of why we don't need to be afraid of empire and how God is triumphant over the empire. But you can't just say that'cause you might get in trouble. So you take magic mushrooms and have a big dream about it and write your dream. Yeah. So those are, did I answer your question? Because Yes. I, I have, in seminary we study the SEP two agent Lay Christians are even aware of that. That's not a thing that we talk about a lot. I.

Ariana:

There's a fast day in the Jewish calendar vet the 10th of the month of vet that commemorates the siege of Jerusalem by Zer. But also commemorates the translation of the Torah into Greek. It commemorates the tut. We fast about it because it's the, I mean, it's a fast day because people see it as a like a handing over the Torah or a much is lost in translation. Right. And

Lura:

Yeah.

Ariana:

The, the translation of Torah, and it's the commentary that's a part of that translation is like an invasion or a loss,

Lura:

Mm. Yeah. Wow.

Ariana:

there's a piece of that. I just wanna put like a fine point on though, that there's all, it's not just about calling Torah the Old Testament and the Christian Bible, the New Testament that says that everything in there is dusty and everything in this is new and shiny. But there's also a piece that is saying that the legalistic Jewish practice replaced by

Lura:

Yes.

Ariana:

A Bible and a Bible of love and a God of love that

Lura:

Mm-hmm.

Ariana:

the The theology, at least from where I said. I'm curious if that lands as true for you, because when people call it the Old Testament, I'm also hearing old Testament Jews are legalistic. We have replaced the covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with the covenant of blood with Christ.

Lura:

Yes, yes, yes. And

Ariana:

I.

Lura:

I mean,

Ariana:

and

Lura:

yes, it's bad. And yes, that's part of Supersessionism that like, we don't need the law anymore. Jesus replaces the law. Jesus replaces the Torah. Jesus replaces the old covenant. And that's. Hey Christians, that's really fucking shitty. Don't do that. Like, hello. That's, that's not how we talk about other people's relationships to God. Other people's relationships to God are their own and are beautiful and are good and do not need us to replace it with quote unquote something better because it's not, our tradition has its own complications. And actually the early Christian fathers,

Ariana:

a

Lura:

but I don't, the, the early theologians who wrote about this

Ariana:

minutes set.

Lura:

there was a debate about is there a bad evil? I.

Ariana:

Mm.

Lura:

God who was replaced with our good and loving God. And the early Christian theologians said, that is a heresy, that is a wrong. We do not believe that.

Ariana:

And then, then the. Just,

Lura:

we see the love of God, the grace of God, the presence of God in Hebrew scriptures,

Ariana:

the

Lura:

every bit as Our, The scriptures that have come to us in Greek, the gospels, and the letters and the revelations and that our scriptures also contain law. Our scriptures also contain expectations about how God wants us to behave and how God wants us to treat each other, and some of them are to our modern eyes.

Ariana:

and then the, And

Lura:

just say all the stuff that is shocking in the Bible to us. All the shocking stuff in the Bible. Oh, that's all that Old Testament and we don't have to deal with it anymore because of Jesus. Like there is shocking, hard stuff to wrestle with. In in the scriptures about Jesus, things that Jesus says that you're like, whoa, dude, what things that Paul says that you like thumbs down. And, and so yeah, we really need to resist this

Ariana:

then,

Lura:

impulse that has come to us from our Christian ancestors who were dominant and were really doing

Ariana:

then they send somebody else like the engineer back under his seat.

Lura:

violence to to

Ariana:

then,

Lura:

as they were saying, like.

Ariana:

then they send somebody else

Lura:

forget

Ariana:

back under

Lura:

how we treat each other. Jesus replaces them. So now we can kill Jews for not getting on board with this. Like we need to wrestle with that and resist our impulse to limit

Ariana:

guy's

Lura:

'cause that is

Ariana:

Hmm,

Lura:

a violation of the words that are in front of us and a violation of the way God expects us to treat other human beings.

Ariana:

Blam.

Lura:

Lamb.

Ariana:

So in addition to the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible Or other theologies or other works of writing. Included in the Christian canon, or would you say that the extent is the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible?

Lura:

I mean, other things are important, but not at that same level, not at the level that we would call them sacred text. So my ordination vows include teaching and preaching in accordance with holy scripture, of the Catholic Church and the Lutheran Confessions. So there is an argument to be made that, that. and that those things are kind of us doing the same thing. The creeds are then the early church, trying to codify the complex witness of

Ariana:

Okay,

Lura:

and what our theology is. And then the Lutheran Confessions are then Luther and other early Martin Lutheran, other early Lutheran theologians commenting on that, what it means, what our Lutheran theology is. So those are. Like your six fingered hands piling up on top of each other. But we don't give them the same weight that we give scriptures. And of course we do. You know, our liturgies, there are pieces of that that, are considered more authoritative than others. You know, we use poems, we add things, but there, there is very much a sense of this closed canon of quote unquote the Bible that is shared among all Christians. Little asterisks, a few people use a few different books. There's a teeny bit of variation, but that, like the Bible is what all Christians share. There are even Christian churches that buy into the creeds. And of course not the Lutheran confession. So yeah, that's considered a closed canon that holds weight, that the other writings that Christians do after that don't hold. Christians who will periodically try to get back to quote unquote a New Testament theology. with the idea that everything that came after that was possibly bad and corrupted and not as inspired by

Ariana:

of The book as

Lura:

inconsequential impulse in Christian thought to say let's clean the slate and get back to the Bible says. And that interestingly enough, that impulse comes from both very, very conservative Christians and very, very progressive Christians.

Ariana:

Well, your summary or philosophy

Lura:

one of my very close colleagues and friends pastor Jason Chestnut, a very progressive Lutheran

Ariana:

and

Lura:

started

Ariana:

might

Lura:

community and it's called The Slate Project. With that idea of the clean slate, let's get back to what the Bible says. Let's forget about all this other stuff that came after it. So yeah, that impulse to,

Ariana:

be

Lura:

later writings and to, to lift up the, the canonical Bible. The closed canon is is an impulse that's all over Christianity,

Ariana:

to you

Lura:

and I have mixed feelings about it, but, you know, I kinda have mixed feelings about all kinds of things. Okay. We have been academic and heavy.'cause I think we need to be when we talk about these things, but like you and I also talk about what it. Like how these things resonate in our souls. And so like

Ariana:

seat. Hubsan x4 H502E Desire 2,

Lura:

what is your, your

Ariana:

3,

Lura:

to these scriptures now that we've kind of defined what Jewish sacred texts are, now that we have talked about inappropriate Christian uses of them. Like what, what is Rabbi Ariana, what happens when Rabbi Ariana reads these.

Ariana:

The the modality and, and home base of my spiritual life. Theory and people who listen to us teach all the time are gonna be like, this is all review.'cause I have, you know, just like the cortex

Lura:

But my congregation has not heard your explanation of Bible study and your congregation. Well, some of them have heard mine'cause I'm showing up there talking all the time. We'll, we'll get used to it. We'll get my folks used to you too.

Ariana:

We will, of it. get through the intro content and then we'll get into the real new material. But there's a, a text in B in the Gamara that says that when two people sit and study text, the divine presence rests between them and. I've heard you preach this I think maybe it was part of your installation at all Saints. I

Lura:

I didn't preach at.

Ariana:

it recently. oh yeah. That was a, that from what I heard when I wasn't chasing my child, that was some real hot, spicy Torah from the bishop.

Lura:

sure was. He called out white people, which was amazing.

Ariana:

called out white people and he called out cis Alright, lucky to have Lara. And we all said it's true. And the so here's our script Here's Oh, we're so lucky to have God.

Lura:

Yeah.

Ariana:

can see where do Text, I am connected to the per person or people I'm learning it with and the like the hair on my, on my arms stands on end and Tinkles because of the, the revelation I am receiving and that we're uncovering together. and we that's God, connected to my ancestors. I, in my, to write a spiritual autobiography in our senior year the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. And I wrote this like sidebar fantasy of sitting with my great, great grandfather Yel, who was a rabbi. And, imagine us sitting in the bait midrash in the the study hall at our rabbinical school arguing and him being confused at how I could exist as a becoming a rabbinic voice. And and then us like on each other and delighting in it and not understanding what memorize. So here we write down ourmana rule. Here is our in different languages. Right? Like he would've been studying in Yiddish even if he was speaking and he was reading the Hebrew and, and, and so I'm, I'm connected to the people who came before me who both gifted me with and burdened me with these texts. And, and I think the, same way in which when I go into a pastoral encounter and I'm like, okay, Hashem, you better catch me'cause we don't know where this is going. I also feel that way in text study. I'm like, something will come out of this. I don't know what it will be. Even when I'm, especially when I'm leading a text study, but anytime and so there, it's just delight. just delight. And the parts that Christians call them clobber texts, which I love. Even the, even the Cloer texts, I. I think because of the, the people that I get to be in community with and the teachers that I get to learn from, am not spooked by the clubber texts because I feel rooted in a Judaism of expansiveness and the ability to interpret our way out of a paper bag. And, and, and so it becomes a, a challenge and often a heartbreaker, but I think I even still experience those as an opportunity to be like, am I seeing only human hand here? Am I seeing divine hand is the divine hand in the way that we correct for this? With time. And so, yeah, text study, the way that sacred text is woven into our liturgy, makes up so much of our liturgy. Is, is such a deep comfort and companion and delight to spend time with, a delight to have in class

Lura:

The Torah is a delight to have in class.

Ariana:

the tour. Is it

Lura:

Yeah,

Ariana:

a class? And here are our friendship

Lura:

is so beautiful.

Ariana:

we're gonna start by This

Lura:

much of what you say resonates with me

Ariana:

concludes today's meeting of the Board of Trustees of the United States of America.

Lura:

where,

Ariana:

This meeting is adjourned.

Lura:

and the delight with scripture isn't language that the Christian Church has as a whole. Right now, in this moment when we're have spent a century wrestling with fundamentalism and literalism, and so it is still, only a few decades old in many of our traditions to talk about wrestling with scripture as a legitimate, appropriate thing to do. And,

Ariana:

Okay, thanks.

Lura:

don't, I find so much delight in scripture. I love it. And that's not language that. I hear a lot in Christian circles because there's so much the like ways that the Bible has been used to harm us, so there's a lot of negative language, which is real, right? Those, that's, I am in no way minimizing that. I just help people find the. The

Ariana:

Thanks,

Lura:

and the beauty and that beyond because, because people who reject, like, we don't read the Bible that way. We don't believe that. We don't, we don't harm people with it. Sometimes

Ariana:

Dad.

Lura:

minimize it in Christian Christianity. Oh, it's just all about love. So let's just focus on the love and not what the words on the page are, where I find the words on the page. Both when read by myself because that is permissible in, in Christian life. Read by myself and read in community that the words in on the page. That have been gifted to us by our ancestors and the Holy Spirit. I do encounter God there and I find so much comfort there. And some of that is in the study and the wrestling. And like, I'm a big nerd, right? I want, and who likes anthropology and archeology? I wanna know what this culture was doing, what their, what

Ariana:

Hey,

Lura:

what the questions were they were trying to answer, what the crisis was that this came out of. I wanna hear like, how has this been used for good and for bad over time? What are the different ways people have interpreted it? I wanna hear what it. What it means right now and right here, like I do believe that God the Holy Spirit speaks to us in those ways, read alone and together. But I like you. There are times when I have had a group of people reading a scripture and we are all horrified by it. Every single one in this room is like, what? Is

Ariana:

kid. Sorry Yeah.

Lura:

violence

Ariana:

interrupt,

Lura:

is one example that I'm thinking of and then I'll say, God is in our shared horror. The, the way that the Holy Spirit is showing up in this room is the way that all of us are rejecting this. All of us are saying. This is wrong. We do not believe this and that's the Holy Spirit too. But Als, but then there's so many passages that like, so much strength and like you said, my great grandparents read these same words and prayed them and you know, verses that, individual verses that provide comfort and provide strength under difficult circumstances. Like my ancestors said those too, to give them strength. And that's, yeah, I get chills with that too. Like, wow, we have this written record of people's faith and a written record of their encounters with God. And yes, it was filtered through their own culture. And yes, some cultural bullshit got in there, but what, what a miracle that we have these written in encounters.

Ariana:

I need

Lura:

met God,

Ariana:

to get back to

Lura:

we, we read them together, God shows up again. Like, what the fuck? That's amazing.

Ariana:

Then, I this is the way I would like great-grandfather's encounters with the

Lura:

Yeah.

Ariana:

right? You have this incredible card catalog of sermons that your pastor, to end the his whole career.

Lura:

I don't know if I have his whole career.

Ariana:

Yeah. Thank you.

Lura:

have a

Ariana:

Thank

Lura:

of his sermon notes

Ariana:

you, everyone.

Lura:

he preached

Ariana:

I'll

Lura:

I preach, you know?

Ariana:

Yeah.

Lura:

Now,

Ariana:

time.

Lura:

he was not a manuscript preacher like me. He didn't write out every word outlines

Ariana:

Bye.

Lura:

I am sometimes

Ariana:

The

Lura:

hear every single word, or sometimes the outline will say, tell the such and such story. And I'm like, what was the such and such story?

Ariana:

And. definition of transcript

Lura:

Hank and his cow. What is the story about Hank and his cow and how does it relate to Isaiah? But but I get, but I get,

Ariana:

is that the

Lura:

I am imagining that they were typed by my great-grandmother, not by him. Who knows?'Cause that's the way things often happened. But yeah, I have these pages that he put in his little in his

Ariana:

transcript

Lura:

and carried up in the pulpit and preached the same scriptures that I preach from.

Ariana:

Man, a file of itself.

Lura:

the same imagination of like, what would he think about me? What's he think about like a female non-binary queer like, yeah, I'm called by God to preach these. And

Ariana:

so it's

Lura:

I bet earthly life that would've been inconceivable. And I hope in whatever reality he is now, that it is conceivable to him.

Ariana:

a file of They're like, okay, what's heaven like? Well, what's the best thing in this world learning? So heaven, the script, and it's a file of the script. Study Hall and the Yeshiva shell maah, the the Heavenly Study Hall. We do the same thing, except God is the Roche Mer. God is the head of the study hall and maybe tells us the answers, but I highly doubt it. But I love the idea of you and I and Aha Rusa and like what flukes of history and sociology, what it have meant for our, your great-grandfather, my great great grandfather to also be a sacred partnering partner. A sacred learning To save yourself learning, like just thinking about our ancestors, trying to whack our heads against each other too.

Lura:

Yeah, although there's a part of me that trembles in that because like trembles in a bad way because it couldn't happen on this earthly plane, because on this earthly plane, ancestors all the good and that they did and all the beauty in their lives also caused great harm. Like my great-grandfather was preaching. In the

Ariana:

from

Lura:

in unseated territory of the indigenous people that had been chased out before him to make room for my great, great grandfather's

Ariana:

the consequences of your actions, Wear a mask. Wear a mask.

Lura:

settler homestead that was empty land because it was stolen. And so

Ariana:

Wear a mask. Wear

Lura:

concept is also tricky because

Ariana:

Totally. a mask. Wear a mask.

Lura:

are

Ariana:

As

Lura:

my life. Who my great-grandfather would have wanted to kill their great-grandfather. And my great-grandfather doesn't write a lot about Jews, but I, I can't imagine.

Ariana:

thank a translator, I have read, examined

Lura:

so in his earthly life, I can't imagine him sitting down with a rabbi and studying together. But, but in

Ariana:

quite

Lura:

hell

Ariana:

a Yeah, I mean, I don't think bit of the of Lutherans in Poland is my, my

Lura:

No. No, I don't think so.

Ariana:

I transcript website. Our families hauling ass to the United States and escape by, by reducing that by any means. But in a heavenly study hall where we get all we have to do and all we get to do is learn like that, the gift of that and the container, that that could hold

Lura:

Hmm.

Ariana:

the permission and container of what happened on earth and the things that were revealed for good or for bad,

Lura:

So I

Ariana:

makes

Lura:

the things that you and I are both talking about is the way that our sacred text, I. Connect us to the past and connect us to divine reality outside of time. And the way that that also connects us to other humans in all kinds of ways beyond the limitations that we have here and now, that like something outside of our here and now happens when we read scripture together, that connects us to something, to a divine reality. More than our human reality. I believe that this sounds like woo woo crazy stuff, but I, believe this shit.

Ariana:

me in the ways that we do us to be able to believe many things at the same time, right? Like I have to believe that horror was gifted to me by my ancestors and the divine in various amounts, depending on how I'm feeling that day. And I have to believe that. Genocided people who are in a land before you get there, even if you feel it's promised to you, is wrong. And women are inheritors of the same goddamn Torah. Oops, sorry. From our previous conversation.

Lura:

Only you. I Can say God, and in that

Ariana:

read the and, and just by buttoning the VBA section. like queer sex that is consensual is a beautiful. Thing that is beloved to God. Like I, for me to believe in the divinely inspired text and in the places in where God is not present in how it has been transmitted and interpreted, requires me to believe two things at once. And

Lura:

Yeah.

Ariana:

like, that modality is, I think in many ways required.

Lura:

Mm-hmm. It is.

Ariana:

So, as well

Lura:

of my sermons are

Ariana:

as likewise, when the transcripts come

Lura:

this scripture, here's some bad way it's been used. Let's not do that.

Ariana:

off the

Lura:

where is God in it for us today? And.

Ariana:

learn something new and this gives me

Lura:

come up with a way that we see God's grace and love in it. Like I feel like that's 90% of my sermons, because there are times so many times when I read a scripture passage that I. it's been used, that it has been used for, that's not intrinsic to the passage and or read the passage. And I'm like, these words on this page are not first read, at first blush the page at first read are difficult, are challenging, are sometimes

Ariana:

my

Lura:

We've been talking a lot about what we do with that, but I, maybe we should delve into that a little bit more. As queer folks, like what, what is that process like for you when you open the lectionary and you look at what's going to be read in services and you're like, oh,

Ariana:

Ah, crap.

Lura:

oh crap. What do you do?

Ariana:

Greek it is incredible that we have only scratched the surface of what we wanna hear each other talk about when it comes to sacred text. So in our next episode, we're going to pick up with how we read Clobber passages and Sacred Text as queer people. Spoiler we're gay.

Lura:

So to this, we need to do,

Ariana:

Yes.

Lura:

we need to end on a God fuck shit or like, I don't know, kill fuck, Mary or you all scissor, ghost.

Ariana:

Mm. We're trying to make it a thing. We're trying so hard.

Lura:

make this a thing. Okay. So Ariana, do you

Ariana:

Okay.

Lura:

your past week a god a fuck and a shit?

Ariana:

Okay. Yeah. I think the God is the, the feeling of talking with congregants and realizing how much trust there is between us. Just that like flow when I don't even need to self-consciously be like, thank you for trusting me with this.'cause it's almost like

Lura:

Yeah.

Ariana:

to the depth of the connection in that moment. I'm really just like savoring the experience of getting to build with new people and having eight year long relationships as people's rabbi and them growing me up from a brand new run faced. Just at a rabbinical school needs to now learn how to be a rabbi kind of a person.

Lura:

the Were a brand new rabbi when you started. Nu.

Ariana:

I, I don't, because I have a record of anyway. Yeah. And so I think just like the tenderness of these interactions, and I had this pastoral meeting this week where we were just like making each other cry and giving each other goosebumps and like talking about sacred texts. It's like. This is great. So that was definitely like the god of it all. The profound zoom out from life. I think the fuck of this week this will be dated by the time it comes out, but hopefully they've reversed their opinion by the time this comes out. Jens Hopkins university. Said that staff and faculty should cooperate with ICE officials. Should they, God forbid, come on campus. And so there was a, a protest this week and just watching professors and students talk about what this means to their daily life and their access to learning. I would say that's, I guess that's the shit. Because in this context, the fuck is the like short pleasure and the shit is the bad. Okay. So that was my shit. Yeah.

Lura:

every time

Ariana:

And then

Lura:

when you're participating at Hopkins or when I see Columbia on the news, what the students are doing and the faculty together

Ariana:

Uhhuh.

Lura:

to notice the way the Muslim students and the Jewish students are so like the activists are like, we are doing this together. Like

Ariana:

Mm-hmm.

Lura:

powerful to me. Every time I see it. Just'cause it's so counter to

Ariana:

Yeah.

Lura:

To the way that there are forces in the world trying to split our, our three religions, but especially your two religions apart.

Ariana:

Mm-hmm.

Lura:

the student activist just being like,

Ariana:

Yeah.

Lura:

not. That's powerful to me every time I get to witness it.

Ariana:

Yeah, yeah. I love that. Hmm.

Lura:

A good, a good fuck

Ariana:

I think the, I know like a pleasurable fuck that I had this week.

Lura:

You can put on the air.

Ariana:

I'm wearing this shirt that I had to change out of the lead to study in, I brought a backup t-shirt'cause I really wanted to wear this one, but I was like, I can't lead tourist study on Zoom wearing this t-shirt. It's by Diva Nigo. And it's a woodblock picture of a Shabbat table and it says, all I brought to the Shabbat potluck are my really big tits.

Lura:

I

Ariana:

And

Lura:

your

Ariana:

would say my.

Lura:

tits, I guess.

Ariana:

Yeah, I don't need to draw attention to my tits anymore than I'm what do Christians say about queer people? Beautifully formed. What is the, there's like a beautifully made.

Lura:

you are fearfully and wonderfully made, but yeah, queer people, queer people like to claim, and

Ariana:

It is. One of ours

Lura:

have any that aren't yours. I, it's, it's addressed to God. for I am fear fearfully and wonderfully made. I don't know, you know, I don't know. Chapter in verse, lemme look it up.

Ariana:

one of our Psalms, written by bisexual. Fuck boy, king David.

Lura:

was one of his, let me see. I'm typing very

Ariana:

God.

Lura:

We need a producer. We need Missy in the room. Missy would know which

Ariana:

I know.

Lura:

is. Psalm 1 39, verse 14.

Ariana:

a classic, one of my top 150 favorite Psalms,

Lura:

Let's see, whole chapter. Does it say by David at the time?

Ariana:

Psalm of David,

Lura:

Of course.

Ariana:

Psalm 1 39.

Lura:

that

Ariana:

God, he really

Lura:

and also like Dude was kind of a bad guy. Sometimes quit. I.

Ariana:

Yeah, like a bad dude.

Lura:

Like not just clueless, fuck boy. Like fucking murder a rapist.

Ariana:

Yeah. And that's on King David. King David is canceled. Thanks for your temple. Too bad it got destroyed.

Lura:

said it, not me.

Ariana:

Sick burn. Sick burn, like the temple burned. Okay. Laura, it's your turn.

Lura:

Well transition time. So my God moment was worship service on Sunday. You know, when you just have those moments, those services where like the music is just moving people and you can feel the

Ariana:

Yeah.

Lura:

the congregation can feel you. And it was, it was one of the. If we only had one story of Jesus left, it would be enough if it was this one. It's the prodigal

Ariana:

Oh.

Lura:

where the father has two sons and one says. Gimme my inheritance. I'm gonna go spend it. And he runs away and spends it all. And then he comes back and his father runs out to meet him and like throws his arms around him before he even finishes the apology and brings him back and throws a giant feast for him. And it's like this amazing, ah, about God's unconditional love for us no matter what we do. And then there's the second half where the older son is like, wait, wait, wait a second, dad, like I've been. And of course it's the eldest. I say as an eldest, right? Of course it's the eldest. He's like, I have been following all the rules my entire life. Why are you being so easy on my little brother? And

Ariana:

Mm-hmm.

Lura:

he doesn't say my little brother. He says, your son. son spent all your inheritance and now you are throwing him a party. And his dad says, your brother came back. Your brother was dead and now is alive. We have to celebrate. So anyway, I got to preach on that and I don't know, it's just one of those Sundays where I could feel that multiple people were crying, which like white Lutherans, like sobbing,

Ariana:

Emoting.

Lura:

the worship service. And yeah,

Ariana:

Oh

Lura:

I was so, I was

Ariana:

hmm.

Lura:

powerfully moved by them.

Ariana:

And also, and we can edit this out, but like you brought yourself to services after a really hard period of time and you were like, I'm gonna do this. And it was transformational it sounds like.

Lura:

I was running late. So yeah, I was coming out of a terrible pain slump. I was still in pain. I. So I was doing the, like, I gotta override that, but I couldn't, there's only so much I can override my body. I was running late, I was embarrassed about

Ariana:

Mm-hmm.

Lura:

and I just had this moment in the car where I was like, me being embarrassed doesn't help them right now. need to set that aside and walk in and do my thing. I don't know that that helps sometimes. So the short term, pure pleasure. I don't even was playing in the sun with your kid. So, yeah, a toddler running around playing wild games, talking about how he went to the Orioles game and that was just joy and him running into my arms. that's even

Ariana:

Hmm

Lura:

just a short term pleasure. That's a. It was pure delight.

Ariana:

And then what's your shit?

Lura:

just, you know, gestures broadly at the outside world.

Ariana:

Whatever could you mean?

Lura:

mean,

Ariana:

How much are you engaging with the news? Like what is your practice around reading the news?

Lura:

Are you asking what I want my practice to be and occasionally it is, or what? It always is.

Ariana:

I want both actually.

Lura:

am. Building a practice with my congregants of praying before and after reading the news, and we're all talking about this together. And

Ariana:

Mm-hmm.

Lura:

like thing, not a first thing in the morning or a last thing at night thing, but a what prayers do we say before we read the news? How do we say either Lord have mercy or God, fuck this shit while we're reading the news? How do we pray afterwards? For what we have read for what is our responsibility to do and how to choose a thing that it is our responsibility to do so. And we've been doing that as a lent and discipline together on Wednesday nights specifically around hunger, because that is, least then we won't get into political fights, you know, as much or, you know, it's pretty, everybody hates. Everybody's against hunger, right? But so we've been practicing by praying together, a scripture passage about hunger and reading something either topically from the news or this Wednesday we did like, health effects of food insecurity. So we, and then we talk together about how those two things intersect and how we see them in our lives and what we might feel called as a congregation to do in response. And I. It is noticeable that when we started this practice four or five weeks ago, it felt so heavy and that every time we've done it as our dreams together about what we could be doing as a congregation response in our own neighborhood and as well as advocacy abroad. It's not as though people are separate from the horror of food insecurity in our neighborhood, but it is much less. Paralyzing when we're talking together about how to respond and even energizing when we're praying together about how to respond. And then we pray again some more. And so we've all been talking about how when we manage to do that privately on a daily basis as opposed to just corporately in a group once a week that it's less terrifying. But that's not what I do every day. Sometimes I'm just. On my

Ariana:

Yeah.

Lura:

and not even thinking I'm reading the news, but see something on social media or something and just like, oh fuck, I wasn't

Ariana:

Mm-hmm.

Lura:

right now. both, both are there.

Ariana:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking about getting the brick, which I rolled my eyes at when I first saw it, but that congregant was telling me it's really good. It like shuts off access to apps until you unb brick it.'Cause yeah, the passive consumption of horror,

Lura:

I don't think that's good for

Ariana:

it's really hard to, it's like. No, it's like punch me in the stomach, you know, like if you like grge your stomach and someone punches you and you're like, I'm tough. But if you get punched in the stomach by surprise, it hurts more.

Lura:

just there are, you know, that, you know, I've, I've told you before about my practice of picking, one social media platform that is not political, that is only delight in humans

Ariana:

Right.

Lura:

quirky and weird and amazing. it turns out that all of the platforms, I will drift into it. And some of it's just by like, I follow this queer person and they play their music, or they do their art, or they do whatever, and then they say something political and I like it because of course I do. And then you know, next thing I

Ariana:

Mm-hmm.

Lura:

This algorithm is full of trans people reading the news and talking about it. And so now I just jumped to another platform and turns out it's really hard to separate the beauty and delight of human weirdness from shitty things that happen in the world. Like those two things get tangled up together.

Ariana:

Yeah,

Lura:

It turns out I can't just separate them

Ariana:

you're saying our binaries are false,

Lura:

false, all of them.

Ariana:

Damn man, this game is canceled. Thanks for joining us on God Crush.

Lura:

podcast was recorded on Piscataway Land, also known as Baltimore. We want to hear from you. You can leave us a voice message at

4 1 0 9 2 9 5 5 0 8.

Lura:

Email us at God Crush pod@gmail.com Laura.

Ariana:

I'm Ariana.

Lura:

me she likes you. Likes you.

Ariana:

I'm am about God, you're not doing it right.