S1E16: Parashat Control

This podcast is PRO-ROCK! Very pro gem and jems. So kick back, relax, give up some control, maybe get tested for OCD, and carve out some limited time for Shabbat mode in your life. Oneg Shabbat and Gut Shabbos.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Dig through that hutch you found on the side of the road and pull out your favorite showmere shabbas board game. It's ParaShot Control this week on Jew Girl. Hello and welcome to Jew Girl, a New Girl podcast for the Jew Curious, in which I make my brother watch my favorite TV show New Girl for the first time and learn some stuff about Judaism. My name is Robin.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

My name is Jay. And in this episode, Schmidt calls something a giant fish toilet. Do you remember what that is?

unknown 0:42

No!

SPEAKER_03 0:43

Specifically the rim of a giant fish toilet, which, as we all know, is the beach.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

That is such a good line. That is such a good It's true subtitle for the beach. I mean, I love the beach. I love the beach, but if I were the kind of person that did not love the beach, great tagline for the beach.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

Right, right. I mean, it's also, you know, the fish's home and the fish's tomb. Oh god. Sometimes the beach is the fish's tomb, too, if it washes up.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

True. Oh. Oh, well, on that bummer of a note. How are you doing? You just been thinking about fish toilets and fish tombs all week?

SPEAKER_03 1:24

No, no, we're good. That's just like that's like the one joke I'd written down in my notes that that applied after the my name is Jay. Calling things something.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

It's good. You know, one time my husband was like, oh, you guys should schmooze more at the beginning of the episode. We'll catch up a little. And so this is me catching up with you. You've just been thinking about fish toilets. That's all I got. That's how I know how to schmooze. Glad to hear you haven't been. What have I been thinking about? Now let's move on. Yeah. End schmooze. End schmooze. Start recap. Start recap. So glad you prompted me. This episode reveals the full extent of Schmidt's control issues. So it begins with him feeling powerless in his little secret arrangement with Cece, and it escalates when Jess tries to decorate the loft with a hutch she found on the street. And Schmidt forbids it. Nick and Winston tell Jess to back down. They happily let Schmidt rule the roost because he also does all the cooking and cleaning for them. But instead, Jess brings in way more secondhand decor, and Schmidt freaks out. So realizing that Schmidt has some real control issues, Jess decides to help him loosen up by uh bringing him down to the boardwalk, the beach, the fish's toilet. Yeah, exactly. He gets lured into a drum circle by a free spirit hippie chick, and it's apparently transformative enough that he does become more carefree, but he also skips work and he starts wearing crystals and a drug rug, and crucially stops cooking and cleaning entirely. So the loft becomes a disaster. Jess realizes she did upset the ecosystem. But they eventually coax Schmidt back to his old self with some words of encouragement and some new Calvin Klein trousers and the offer to finally let him clean Nick's room, which is apparently his white whale. Always wanted to do that. Meanwhile, in the B plot, B plot's a phrase, right, Jay? Right, film guy?

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Yeah, totally. The less important plot, but is still a plot line.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

That's right. Although that feels it's a shame to describe this as just a B-plot, then, because I actually love the subplot so much. Meanwhile, Nick owes Winston more than $400 after a drunken poker game, and it looks like he is not gonna pay up. Winston eventually writes a, I love this so much, a firm but insistent letter that he reads to Nick insisting he be paid. But what does he say? I'm not without mercy or something. He offers to call it an even 200, and Nick agrees, but then immediately starts haggling it down based on things he's paid for in the past and all the free drinks at the bar and the fact that his Winston saw his mom naked once. Somehow that's that's calculated in. Anyway, tensions build between the two of them, and they ultimately have a slap fight in a grocery store. And then they go home and they ice their wounds together, but kind of unclear if Nick ever actually gives Winston the money. I think it kind of just ends there. So that's the subplot that I do love. So let me hand you the feeling shtick, Jay, and I want you to tell me how you felt about the episode, what you liked, what you hated, what your feelings are, what your your thoughts in general are.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

Yeah, so the the one line in this that really like felt emotionally charged, and I I really liked it, was when she's like, I just wanted to be part of the family. And he's like, What family? Us clowns? And she says, You clowns. Or whatever. Something about that was just so sweet. Very little of her feeling shtick other than that. I mean, a lot of good funny jokes, but like, you know, in terms of an episode, I don't know. Nick should be better with money, and Schmidt should learn to calm the heck down.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

And or maybe get diagnosed for OCD. Unclear. People on the internet are like, I'm writing a paper in my psychology class about Schmidt's undiagnosed OCD. And a lot of people are like, yeah, he really exhibits a lot of the so I kind of feel bad, like, you know, on the one hand, but on the other hand, I'm not sure he actually has OCD. He might just be. Sure, sure. You know, Schmidt.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

That's a good point. That's a good point. I like that someone's writing a paper. That's great. I think they have a very strong case for it. Right. I am happy that Schmidt was able to accept less control in the relationship with Cece, I guess. Like, that's really where this episode came back to, right? He was it started out with he's like, he's like, I have no control in our relationship, Cece. And then we cut to him having all the control in the world at the loft, right? And like the weird thing is that, like, you know, he learned to let go, but then everyone is kind of a jerk for forcing him back into being his super, maybe OCD self, who knows, right? Like, right, and and I'm I'm sort of leaking into the douchebag Sadaka box a little bit, but bring it on. You know, I uh the last note I had for that was like all of them are douchebags for not helping clean up, like they all contributed to that mess at the end, right? Like the fact that the whole plot is them undoing the good that they kind of did because they think it went too far, right? It's like you guys are just bad adults.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Like, yeah, bad adults, bad friends, mooching off your friends.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

They really are, they really are. I I thought a little bit less of all of them after this episode. I know, but yeah, circling back to the CC thing, like, you know, it circles back to the end of him just accepting the less control, which is good because I mean you're right, I guess that was the whole plot, right? To get him to be less controlling. But then the fact that they like reversed that for their relationship with him, I don't know. I don't know. Just something about it felt weird that CeCe wasn't now that I say it out loud, it's not that silly, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

No, see, actually, you're convincing me I hadn't thought about it from this angle. And now that you're saying that, I'm like, yeah, that is weird. Like, like, what are we rooting for? Are we rooting for him to lose l let go of controlling things? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

As a good friend of mine always says, it's all about finding that balance, right? And and this is sort of a joke that this friend and I have where the idea is you could just say that about anything and people will agree with you. But I think, I think behind that joke, it's because it strikes as something very true, right? Like, yeah, it's all about finding that balance. Schmidt should be able to lose some of his control over a shared living space, right? But at the same time, Cece should be able to give him a little bit more control in their relationship. And also, though, I want to like add that caveat of CeCe has been a victim in the past in of her past relationships, going back to that idea of her being like a trophy girlfriend or whatever and not wanting that. So, like, obviously, that's still a factor to consider in this in him having less control. Because maybe the less control is just not being able to be dropped off at the apartment, right? He has to like be dropped off farther away and walk there, you know? So, like, I I don't know. It's still like obviously there are reasons why they have the dynamic that they have, but so I don't know. I don't know. I guess my thoughts are all over the place for this episode.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

No, it's really interesting. Like, it makes you wonder was this was this plot written to advance the him and Cece plot, or was it written to explore him as like you know, his dynamic in in the loft with all the friends? Like, was the CC relationship an entryway to the real thing that they wanted to highlight, which is like his control of the apartment, or was it, you know, this whole crazy plot was in service of him working through his control issues with CC? It's interesting, you know. I don't know. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

I mean, I I guess, and why I was like, maybe what when I say it out loud, it it makes total sense. But it's like the whole episode trying to get him to loosen up his feeling of needing control does benefit him in the end, I guess, in his situationship with CC. So, like by the end, he's still he's still grown as a character. He he has a slightly more internal piece, which I guess is good for him in the arc.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

But now here's a list of jokes I thought were really funny. Good. When he uh just says that he started fire twirling down with the drum circle people on the beach and says his twirling is bad. He burned a lot of people. That was just like my kind of humor. It was just like so unexpected. I like when Nick says, Who's gonna help me when I call a panini a hot sandwich? How am I ever gonna learn? If Schmidt's not there to correct him. And then also cutting to, you know, oh, the birds in the sky, and you see a dead bird on the ground being eaten by a cat. And then also like the needle on the beach, which brings me to a J aside that'll try to keep real quick.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Oh god, what could a needle on the beach have to do with your life, Jay? Oh, what am I about to learn about you? Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 10:22

It felt like a sadly very real situation in California in some ways. Oh I have lived in California, and in the time that I've lived in California, I have heard of I think at least two different stories of someone stepping on a needle while going on a walk on the beach and then needing to like go get medical health to prevent anything bad from happening. Including, I'm pretty sure, my neighbor.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

No way.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Yeah. She was fine. She was fine. But just to, you know, I was like, it made me a little scared of I mean, I went to the beach plenty, right? And I never saw any needles.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

But and you always wore shoes.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

No, no. But it did make you wonder. Did it did make it, especially since the beach that my neighbor stepped on it, a needle, it was the beach that we frequented a lot.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Ooh.

SPEAKER_03 11:13

Anyways, JSID over. Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

That's horrifying. Thanks for that horrifying J bit. Terrible. I love when Schmidt says that pine has no place in this loft. It's the wood of poor people and outhouses. That's a classic. Yes. As I've already said, I think I I love Winston reading his little script of a letter. But specifically when he goes, he says that they're both broke, and one of us, embarrassingly so, points to Nick. He says, he says out loud, points to Nick as he points to Nick, which is very funny to me. Uh, and then also when Schmidt says, I'm gonna go take a shower with Nick's bar soap like a common ranch hand.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

That's another good line.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Those are my favorites.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

Love that. So I already alluded a little bit to some Sadaka box inserts. Yes, yes. Aka all of them. But narrowing it down a little bit, Jess, don't use other people's coffee grinders for crayons. Oh how how how rude and inconsiderate of you. And then of course, Schmidt, don't call people new homeless. Oh my god, I know. I know. As funny as that is for like a like new money, right? Or like that sort of an adjective or an aesthetic or something. New homeless is just like oof. New homeless. And don't break other people's furniture that you don't like. Because he tipped over that hutch that just brought in. And don't speak down on dreadlocks, even if the extra that's in the background that has dreadlocks is a white woman.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Ooh. Also, by the way, I think we call them locks now. I don't think we use the dread anymore. Really? Yeah, I don't know. You can Google it after the fact show, but I'm pretty sure. The more you know. And uh, what do you know? It's time for observant Jews. This is a first segment in which we find out if we two Jews observed things this episode. What things you may ask? Two different kinds of things Jewish stuff and a bear. A bear. So, Jay, did you pick up on any Jewish jokes or Jewish content this episode?

SPEAKER_03 13:26

Yes. Schmidt's mom said that Santa didn't go to their house, not because they were Jewish, but because he didn't clean his room.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

That's right. Poor Schmidt.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

Hey, you know, we grew up in a Jewish home that celebrated Christmas, right? We did. As I think many American Jews can relate to. Favorite national secular holiday and all. That's right. And our father used to joke. Do you remember what he used to say about how Santa got into our house that did not have a chimney?

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah. Uh uh, oh, was it the cable, the cable box or something? Yes.

unknown 14:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

Santa would come down the cable uh to our to give us presents. And I would always picture this little like electrified Santa, just a little zap of light running through the cable from the telephone pole outside into the cable box and popping out.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

That's very cute.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Were there any other Jewish jokes? I also saw no bear.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Oh, okay. So that was the only Jewish joke I picked up on. Um, I did see Elijah the fridge bear briefly, I think, but but I did find a real one in the wild. I mean, not a not a real one and not in the wild, but there was, I believe, a fur hat that is a bear on the beach boardwalk strip place that they're walking down when she brings them down there. There's like a thing, I think, selling furry hats or something. And one of them, I'm pretty sure, is a bear. Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

So yay, we found a bear finally. Found a bear. Good eye. Thank you. You found that yourself without the internet?

SPEAKER_00 15:04

I found that one myself. Yes. Yes. Ever since we realized that I really should be the one bearing the weight of the bear, bearing the weight of the bear search on my shoulders because I've seen all these episodes 400 times, and you are uh, you know, doing silly things like absorbing plot for the first time. I've really been trying every scene. I'm really trying to keep my eyes peeled. So, yes, this one was all me.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Very much commendable. Thank you. Did you happen to see any any little tiny something else on that boardwalk?

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Oh, any little tiny like a little like a little bit of something?

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Yeah, a little, a little smidge.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

A little bit. Little little schmid bit. I got a little schmid bit. Friends, of course, this is the segment in which I take something that Schmidt, our canonical Jew of the Loft, said or did this episode, and I extrapolate from that a Jewish little tidbit, a little schmid bit. So the schmidbit I've got for you to jay.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

Yeah I see what you did there.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Is about when Schmidt wears a crystal. We're gonna talk about crystals. And he says that he's it symbolizes energy. And Nick tells him it's he's like, all a crystal is is rock poo, Schmidt. So yeah, we're gonna talk about crystals and precious stones in Judaism. Isn't that a fun one? Yeah. So, okay, crystals doing magic and carrying energies and stuff is thought is very new age, right? But it actually goes way back in many cultures, and Judaism, plot twist, is no exception. All right. In fact, in the Middle Ages, Jews were the leading importers of gems, and Christians had a saying. This is pretty funny. They had a saying that went, Christians put their trust in words, Jews in precious stones, and pagans in herbs. So apparently this was a stereotype that people had of Jews is that was putting their trust in precious stones, okay?

SPEAKER_03 17:10

Oh wow. Well, I mean, if you flip the W in Jew upside down, it just spells gem. So gem.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

It misspells gem. It misspells gem. And this all goes back sort of to temple times, of course. The priest wore uh this breastplate, okay? Stick with me here. Uh the blueprint of which, like many other of the big ritual objects back in the day, is recorded in detail in the Torah. Like this is this is how you're gonna make this specific breastplate that the that the high priest is gonna wear, including exactly which precious stones uh were supposed to be featured on this breastplate. So this was like full of gems in sort of a grid as it's described. And each stone was inscribed with the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. So there were 12 stones, 12 tribes of Israel. Now the translation is super hard to figure out exactly what precious stones these were because like there's just a lot of messy translation work going over there and how these words they didn't have good geology back then. Plus, no geologists wandering the desert with them. No, it's just like we don't really know. So, but it seems like these probably included at least um some minerals like onyx, turquoise, jasper, amber, carnelian, maybe lapis lazuli. So uh rabbis, over time, they have ascribed meaning and sometimes mystical properties to these 12 stones, whatever they were, uh, as well as other stones. So there is a 14th century manuscript called the Sephar Gamatriot, and it goes through each of the 12 tribal stones and it attributes powers and energies. So this is one of the more mystical texts on it, right? It's doing the whole, ooh, crystal woo-woo thing, and it's, you know, there's like a whole list. One of them's good for fertility, and others are good for like affairs of the heart or trade while you're traveling or battle strength or curing ailments or whatever. Another one rejuvenates the old, quote quote, if you grind it into a powder and eat it. Wow. So I guess that was happening. One prevents you from stumbling and falling so that knights and horsemen love it, which is funny. They they make a point of saying knights and horsemen love it because of this. And I don't know. It's just fun to read these. I mean, everybody likes a little magical realism in the world, right? So it's it's fun to hear what they said these were doing. In the Talmud, there is a section about carrying things on Shabbat when you go out. Usually there's a prohibition on carrying things outside, but one of the exceptions that they carve out is that a pregnant woman can go out with a preservation stone, which they say sort of off-handedly, as if it's well known, prevents miscarriage, of course. As long as it's made by an expert. That's like also a footnote. Like, hey, you fancy mystical stone that prevents miscarriage. As long as it's made by an expert, mystical stone carver, you can carry that on Shabbat because nobody wants you to have a miscarriage. And there's another interesting quote uh in a Torah commentary from middle-aged Spain, like 1200, 1300 CE, and it says, just as we have been taught in this other part of the Talmud, that there is no herb on earth which does not have its counterpart in the celestial regions, providing it with its individual mazal, which is like luck, so the same is true of precious stones. So people be talking about it back in the day. Um, however, alongside the mystical strains of Judaism, there are also, of course, plenty of rationalists. One, a very famous one being the medieval Jewish scholar and physician, by the way, Memonides. Big deal, who strongly asserted that all amulets and magic were entirely nonsense and actually fraudulent, swindling the gullible people who bought them from you. So there is that. So, you know, not everybody was like woo-woo gems, even though some mystical people were like woo-woo gems. I mean, no shade on people who like woo-woo gems. I own some crystals, but it is because I like geology a lot. So I like the rock poo. They're really gorgeous and they're crazy that they just grew on the ground. But hey, you know, pretend get that magical realism in your life if you want it, because I I like that idea too. It's fun. Yeah, yeah. And uh, oh, and then there is this this whole other third discourse from the rabbis that, you know, it's not like, yay, they're great and this is their magical powers. It's not like this is all bunk. There's this third discourse that says, no, yeah, we assume it, it just assumes it is real, all that magic and stuff, but is halakhically prohibited because it's sorcery and you know, bad, I guess. But the very fact that they're talking about it so much as they wag their fingers at it proves that people were doing it. You know, those folk people were making their amulets, believing in it and stuff. So it was happening. Happening. True. The whole time. And if anyone is interested in this kind of stuff, uh, whether or not you like the fun, energy, magical realism of it all, Jew Witches is a website and a person on socials or whatever. She's got a big article on this kind of stuff from which I got a lot of this info. So thank you, person who runs Jew Witches. Nice. Uh, but in case you're interested in reading up more on precious stones in Jewish history, there is a lot more that's not so woo-woo as well.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

Does Kabbalah, uh which I know very little about other than it's kind of like the mystical, magic y side of Jewish uh stuff. Does that focus on crystals in any way that you saw in your research?

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Yeah, I mean, I think that the all those like the middle aged stuff that I'm talking about that has its roots, like that counts as mystical strains of Judaism, Kabbalah, yeah, that's sort of lumped into that. In fact, the one of the Talmud things that I referenced, oh actually, no, it's this one's not in the proper Talmud, but Sefer Gamatriote. I'm pretty sure Gamatria is like numerology too. So there's all these different kinds of esoteric mystical practices wrapped up like this. I don't think that the stones, well, actually, maybe they were because people had these stereotypes about Jews placing their trust in stones, right? And and they were talking about it. So I didn't go into this thinking that it was like the pinnacle of Kabbalah. I don't think it's like the crux of that whole mystical Judaism world, but it was definitely there. You know, people were doing it, people were making amulets of all kinds, apparently including ones that used stones. People were putting them under their beds and carrying them around when they're pregnant to make sure they have healthy pregnancies. So definitely a thing.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

Putting trust in stones. I like that phrase, not for the mystical things, but because of all the other things it could mean, like architecture, right? Like we trust a bridge, we trust the house that the walls aren't gonna fall down, right? Or like a like a stone on a ring, right? Like you trust in the love it represents, or something like that. Like that phrase. You know, when you were listing all of the things that stones, you know, like, oh, this one's for healing, this one's for pregnancy, this one's for, you know, the bad part of me was like, you know, you could make a lot of a lot of real claims about stones if you go in a negative direction. Like this uh white fibrous stone will shorten your lifespan if you crush it up and inhale it because it's asbestos, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

They were missing the real market was for for curses. This stone will bless you with the actual damage it'll do to your body.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

This stone will make a big lump in your head if you strap it to your head because it's radioactive, uh like uranium or something, and like gives you a tumor.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Yeah. This stone will magically attract paper clips when they're invented in a thousand years. The magnet. That's great.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

That's great. I mean, magnets, honestly, that may as well be magic for anyone who I mean the electromagnetic spectrum may as well be magic, if you ask me.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Absolutely. I mean every yes, everything. Real. I mean, don't get me started on existence, right? But because like you get it's all magic. But yes. Love a magnet. Love a magnet, love geology, love rocks, love what you said about rocks. I'm a big rock fan. Don't get me started on rocks. I have a rock collection. All right, you heard it here.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

This podcast is pro-rock. Maybe not, maybe not pro crystal woo-woo, but definitely pro stone.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

You know what? I feel like we're coming down too hard on the crystal woo-woo. I'm gonna say I'm pro, well, I'm not pro woo-woo, but I'm pro-crystals. They're pretty. And if you want to, if you want to imagine that your crystal is giving you good vibes, then why not? You know? Totally. Bring those good vibes into your life any way you want to bring those good vibes into your life. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

It's all as as long as you are like maybe not relying on it to cure like a very easily cured cancer or something, you know what I mean? It's all about finding that balance.

unknown 26:11

Yeah, all about finding that balance.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Well, on that spectrum, I'll come down hard anti-crystal. Do not use your crystals to cure your cancer. This show is going on record as pro-medical treatment for cancer.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

Yes, yes. If if you want to use the crystal in conjunction with other stuff, sure. Do that. And and then when you're cured and you want to attribute it to the crystal, who's gonna stop you, you know?

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Give your doctor a crystal in thanks for all the work that your doctor actually did to anyway. Anyway.

SPEAKER_03 26:46

As long as it's not asbestos or radioactive.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

That's right. Well, that was fun. I thought that was a fun topic.

SPEAKER_03 26:52

That was very fun. Thanks for letting me let me derail it so hard. No, you didn't, you didn't. You know what that got me thinking about.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Tell me.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Is maybe there's a stone out there that could give you a rash, and maybe there's another stone that could give you a d-rash or a drush.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

You got a drush? Oh. That was awesome. What a transition. What a segue, Jay. No smoother transition in the history of podcasting. But yes, I'm so glad you asked.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Anyone have a drush? Nose of a stone that would give you a rash to justify what I just said, or to cure a rash.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Right in. Listen, I'm sure you find a stone, you rub it enough on your arm, your arm is gonna get a rash.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

A drash, a drosh. Yes. So glad you asked, Jay. I'm gonna give a little drosh today on the theme of relaxation. Ah. Uh. So of course this is prompted because Jess encourages Schmidt to chill out. Calm down, relax, man. Just enjoy life. These are my words, not hers, but you know, that's what she's going for. And he certainly leans into a life of total relaxation for a brief while. And uh, relaxation also comes up briefly in the B plot in a funny moment, kind of, because Nick is trying to avoid paying up by telling Winston to relax. And case in point, Winston's reading that letter he composed to demand his money back. And Nick literally tells him to relax, and Winston flips the letter over and says, if I am reading this section, then I can only assume you have told me to relax. And he's like, Let me assure you, I am very relaxed, although I have good reason not to be, as you owe me a very large sum.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

He thought of everything.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

They really did. So anyway, I thought this would be just a good time to talk about Shabbat. I was like, let me just use, you know, we're talking about relaxation a little bit. Let's talk about Shabbat because we haven't really gone into that too much yet. Sure. Yeah. So let me just start by saying that Shabbat is one of the best parts of being Jewish. Period. Full stop. Full stop. Also, probably the most central. And that's that's other people on the internet talking, not just me. This is considered possibly the most central thing about being Jewish. Uh yeah. So Shabbat, for all those who don't know out there, is the Jewish day of rest. It happens every single week from sundown Friday night to Saturday night. And it's a holiday, technically. It's a holiday, arguably the most important holiday, and you'll see why in a second. But it is also bounded on either end by certain rituals that you always do. So on Friday night, it begins with lighting Shabbos candles. By the way, Shabbos is another way to say Shabbat. It is, of course, the Yiddish way, um, because we're turning that final T into an S. So you're lighting some Shabbos candles, you're making kiddish over the wine, which is like saying a big blessing, also over bread, usually hala, which I know came up before. And it ends on Saturday night with a ceremony called Havdala, uh, which is a lovely little ritual. It sort of is it engages all your senses, but I'll probably talk about that more uh at another time. So right now, just know that it has a start and an end with these two rituals, always. So Shabbat has its conceptual origins in the creation myth, the creation story, in which God is said to have spent six days doing all the work of creation. And then on the seventh day, of course, instead of doing any more work, he rested. And then a little later on in that book, the good old book, the Ten Commandments are dished out. And one of them is to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. So that's why arguably this is the most important holiday, because it is the only one that gets a call out in the Ten Commandments. So the basic idea is that you rest. In other words, you do not work. Now, the word that's usually translated as work doesn't even correspond to, I mean, obviously it doesn't correspond to employment, like people weren't clocking in and out of a factory anyway. Right. But it doesn't even apply to all hard labor. It's actually the word that is used is more specifically like creation, creating, creative labor, like labor that creates things, or even like purposeful making, which makes sense if you think that we're, you know, its origin isn't creating the universe. Right. So in addition to being the word that's used in Genesis there, it's also crucially the word that is used when the Torah is describing the construction of the tabernacle, which again is that little tenth thing that carried through the desert with all the instructions for how to make things and carry the Ten Commandments and everything. Right. In that context, you'll often see it translated as workmanship. So that again you can see the theme of like creating things. But anyway, not only does that passage use the same word, it actually comes right next to the passage about observing Shabbat. So when the rabbis were like, well, what kind of rest, what what kind of work are we supposed to be avoiding doing? They decided to connect those two passages and they decided, okay, the kind of work that we're refraining from is the kind of work that was required to construct the tabernacle. So like those construction instructions teach us the kind of work that we should refrain from doing on Shabbat. So that's where that comes from. There's like 39 categories or something, all pulled from things that they did to create the tabernacle, which is interesting. So an easy one, no commerce. That one's still straightforward, right? You're not going to be buying and selling things. Sure. No real cooking or cleaning. So hey Shabbat, hey, uh, hey Schmidt. No cooking or cleaning. You get a rest from that. No carrying stuff. We sort of talked about this earlier with this with the stone that you can carry if you don't want to miscarry, right? If you're pregnant. But generally, you're not supposed to like really carry stuff from place to place because that feels like work, I guess. Technically, no work that's like creating stuff. So that includes like cooking, also kind of includes writing and like probably painting, probably some things that we, you know, you might actually want to do on Shabbat if you're resting. But I was gonna say that's actually a little disappointing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, uh, you know, I'll talk about this a little later, but like, yeah, you don't have to there's many ways to do Shabbat, right? But like in in its origin and and in some very strict interpretations, right, right. No creative stuff, right? And also no lighting or extinguishing fires, which some people have extended historically to no electricity. At some point, somebody decided completing an electrical circuit or whatever is the equivalent of sparking fire or extinguishing fire. So that, my friend, is why a lot of strictly observant Jews may not engage with electricity on Shabbat. So they might not turn on or off a light.

SPEAKER_03 34:04

Does that mean that electricity bills are actually through the roof on Shabbat because they will have left the light ons beforehand instead of just not having lights on at all?

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yes. Yep. In many, in many homes, that is what you will find. There's also uh in some buildings, if you're in a particularly observant neighborhood where there are a lot of Orthodox Jews, sometimes you'll see um an elevator in Shabbat mode where it stops at every single floor so that they don't have to be clicking the buttons. And there's also actually your stove probably has Shabbat mode. I guess this is a common thing on stoves. Is it stoves? Anyway, some appliance has a Shabbat mode where it's like you turn it on before Shabbos begins, and then it is just kind of like war, it keeps like a warming plate level of electricity on. And I think other appliances also have Shabbat modes too. Like maybe, oh, maybe fridges do, so that the light won't turn on and off when you open the door. Anyway, you can see how it gets a little wild if you're taking it to extremes.

SPEAKER_03 35:09

I wanna now think of all of the terrible appliances that shouldn't have a shabbat mode. Like a blender just has like a constantly rotating blade at the bottom, just in case you wanna it'll take a little longer, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Listen, I might want a smoothie on Saturday morning, and uh, what am I supposed to do? I gotta just drop the strawberries in the active blender.

SPEAKER_03 35:29

Anything could be a milkshake. Or um like a microwave, just like a low-level dosage of microwave radiation constantly going. As long as you open the door fast enough and throw the thing in and close it, you're probably fine.

unknown 35:43

Oh god.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Oh man. So yeah, those are some of the things.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Oh, and then of course, that fire thing, um, a little less of a stretch, I guess, to say that it applies to driving to cars. So a lot of people won't drive because there's the combustion engine. Sure. So that is like more of a fire, I guess. So anyway, if you observe the Sabbath, I guess to you know, any significant degree, even you know, not everybody, I'm sure, does every one of these, but you might still consider yourself Shomer Shabbat or Shomer Shabbos. And this is a phrase that means Sabbath observant. So you might ask someone, I I'm I see a lot of people posting looking for Jewish roommates, and they, you know, they're saying, I'm Shomer Shabbat, like I'm looking for Shomer Shabbat roommates. So it just means that you abide by Shabbat, you treat Shabbat like Shabbat, you're refraining from doing a lot of things, you whatever. Shomer Shabbos. It's a good phrase to know. So now you know it. So what do Shomer Shabbat Jews do, right? Like I've given you a bunch of prohibitions here, but what do they do? What do we do? We do a lot. Oh, you have special meals, we spend time with family and friends, you go to synagogue, you schmooze afterwards, you can sing, you nap, you read, you have marital intimacy, which by the way is a double mitzvah on Shabbat because it's a mitzvah to go forth and multiply, and it's a mitzvah to observe Shabbat and make it a delight. So that's a double mitzvah, folks. And uh and you can play Shomer Shabbos board games, like I said in my intro. It that's any board game in which you like don't have to break any of the rules, you don't have to write anything down, you don't have to light a fire like so many board games make you do. There's a lot to do. And all of that being said, there are many ways to observe Shabbat. And, you know, if you're not gonna give up all technology, for example, you know, that's I don't give up all technology. Like it's fine. I think personally, this is just me speaking here. Every Jew from the ends of the spectrum will hate me for all of my takes on all of this. Like, either I'm being way too lenient or I'm being way too like what you give any rules to your day. But I personally think that as long as the focus is on setting the day apart as a day where you really refrain from your everyday normal life to some extent. And like importantly, that you're really super intentional about maybe like paring back, slowing down, resting. Like that's that's Shabbat to me. But the rules, at least keeping some of them, like if if a couple of them resonate to you, like you know me, I I don't use my phone on Shabbat. I think some rules actually help make all of that happen. Because like without any structure or any discipline, it's easy to say, like, oh sure, I'm gonna take it easy today, right? But if it's really just like any other day, there's nothing to ensure it will be meaningful. Right. So it's like all the prohibitions actually help uh create this container. It's like a calm and spacious container, you know, that you can fill with all the good stuff. Like parent back really does there is something to be said for it. And also Shabbat is intended to be a delight. Like quote, delight. There's this concept of oneg Shabbat, literally means the d delight of the Sabbath. And it is the idea that we are supposed to make Shabbat a delight. And not just a spiritual one if you're going to shul. By the way, shul is synagogue. I don't know if I keep saying shul and that's just a mystery word.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

I think we've said that. Okay, great, good, good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

So not just a spiritual day of going to shul and praying or whatever you might do there, but like a tangible physical delight as well. Good food, good clothes, good sitting around a table, good books, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 39:50

Making it delightful, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Whatever is good. Exactly. Making it delightful intentionally. So oneg Shabbat. And also, I guess sometimes you might hear oneg referred to as if they got little treats after Friday night services. Like, oh, you stand for oneg. So you might hear it in that context too. It's like, oh, because I'm eating goodies, I'm eating treats, I'm I'm enjoying delicious things with people, you know?

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

And of course, for you know, you know this, Jay, but you wish people a Shabbat shalom, which of course means a peaceful Sabbath. And you can also, if you would like to be a little Yiddish, uh, you could say good Shabbos.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

Good Shabbos. That's right. You told me if I if I saw like a Hasidic person walking down the street, I I should say on Shabbat, I should say. Good Shabbos.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

Good Shabbos, good Shabbos, exactly. That'll get you far. That and good Yantif, if it's a Yantif, good Yantif and good Shabbos.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

Oh, actually, that's what you told me to say. Good Yantif. Yeah, did not remember.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

But now you know good Shabbos too.

SPEAKER_03 40:47

Now you know it's you're right, because Yantif, oh right, right, right. Yantifs are like, there's like those six really high special ceremony days, holy days, holidays.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Yep, yep, yep. Which have the so these are the rules for uh Yantif. All these same don't work rules. So Shabbat, same thing. Are there six Yantif? Did I get that right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

There are.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Yeah, yeah, you got that right.

SPEAKER_03 41:13

But are some of them doubled because you start at the beginning and the end of the holiday, or yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 41:19

So it's not just six days?

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Right. Yes. It's six holidays. Um, but some of the holidays are multi-day and and yes, right. Okay. There are multiple days of Yantif in the holidays. So yes, you are correct on both counts there.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

Good Yantif. Good Shabbos. Oneg. Shabbat. I'm gonna have a little oneg after this. Well, it's not Shabbat. Yeah. I'm gonna have a cookie. I'm gonna have a cookie after this. That'll be my oneg.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Have an oneg Monday. Oneg Monday night. Delight of the Monday night. And I'm gonna end this little thing with a very famous quote by a Jewish writer named Ahad Ha'am. This is very famous. More than Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews. And what he meant by this is that over centuries of exile, being dispersed through different countries and different cultures that were not their own, and being persecuted and being such a small minority, Judaism could easily have dissolved. Right? Like Jews could have just assimilated, Judaism would no longer exist. Like they were really embedded in so many different cultures from being scattered so many different times, being kicked out of one place, kicked out of this place, whatever. But every single week, no matter where they were in the world, Jews would stop and they would light the candles and they would bless a meal and they would spend a day in rest. And it's a ritual that travels well and it creates a shared rhythm and a shared identity. And crucially, it couldn't easily be stamped out by persecution because it's so home-based and so personal. Although I think every now and then they were persecuted if you didn't work on a Saturday, like any businesses that were closed on a Saturday, but whatever, whatever, whatever. It also happens every week, so it's hard to forget about it. Right. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

And probably was the basis for the idea of a weekend, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_03 43:22

Probably, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:23

I think so, yeah. I mean, the Christians certainly got the idea from us.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

Right, right. Even if it was a different day. I actually was thinking the other day, uh, and sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering why, when a weekend became two days, why it was Saturday. And I did wonder if the Christians were like, well, the Jews are already resting on the Saturday, and we're resting on the Sunday. So those may as well be the two days where no one's no one's working. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

That's a good question. Yeah, yeah, I wonder.

SPEAKER_03 43:50

And I'm not gonna look it up. Anyways.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

Story of my life on this podcast story of my life.

SPEAKER_03 43:57

All right, I looked it up. Yeah, it's pretty much. Right. But it should also be noted that the weekend as we think of it nowadays came about thanks to a push from the labor unions. Thanks, labor unions.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

But yeah, I mean the practice of observing Shabbat week after week is like what sustained and maintained, arguably, Jewish identity and kept it coherent and continuous across time and across, you know, vastly different surrounding cultures and difficult circumstances and everything. Like this was the you know, more than Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews. I love that. So go out there and make some Shabbat traditions, you know? Think about what you can pair back maybe in your life. You and all you listeners, you know, pair back, tear down, how you can open up that space to have a day of rest and relaxation, really.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

It's a good call to be introspective, mindful, and benefit oneself by slowing down.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Yeah. I mean, it's really awesome. It is like such an oasis in time, it feels like. When you really treat it as this is a different day, and I am pausing all my normal stuff and I'm being really intentional about what I either do or don't do. It's crazy. It's it's magical. Like it creates an oasis in time. It really is more different. It's different than just saying, like, I'm gonna have a relaxing day. I don't know. I can't describe it. That's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:19

No, you just did it.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

It's great. And back to the episode Schmidt's journey into his relaxed lifestyle. I would call that a very messy and dysfunctional Shabbat, actually. Because he's like almost Shabbating, but I think he's doing it wrong. Like, yes, he's not working, he's not cooking or cleaning, but he's just he's just chilling out, maxing, relaxing, all cool. But Shabbat, like I said earlier, is purposefully structured with a an intentional beginning and end, right? Which like sounds restrictive. Like, why can't I just relax all the time? It sounds restrictive to have a discrete beginning and end, but it's actually what makes it so accessible and sustainable and reliable. And I think that that's what really is the problem with Schmidt's whole relaxation journey here is it has no structured end.

SPEAKER_03 46:15

He didn't he didn't set a time limit on it.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Didn't set a time limit. Like there, that's what lets it turn into chaos, right? Yeah. You can't be on Shabbat mode all the time. I mean, I guess technically your oven could be on Shabbat mode all the time if you wanted it to be, but like you can't be on Shabbat mode all the time. It was like, yeah, society wouldn't society.

SPEAKER_03 46:32

He becomes his best self once he stops the relaxation but has gained the benefits from it.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

Yeah, exactly. Which is actually like what else is Shabbat for, if not to prepare us for the rest of the week. And also, yeah, like keep the recharge. He doesn't know how to find a middle ground. He doesn't know how to return to work. I mean, when he's in the thick of it.

SPEAKER_03 46:55

He doesn't know how to find that balance.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

Exactly. Oh my gosh. It's too all or nothing.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

Too all or nothing.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Plus, also, when Winston is, when he says, you know, if I if I'm reading this, you've told me to relax, I assure you I'm very relaxed, although I have good reason not to be. That makes me also think, like, yes, that's Shabbat too. Like that sentiment. Because even if you have good reason not to be relaxed for your normal six days of life, Shabbat is a time where you like, you kind of have to be relaxed, even if you have good reason not to be. Like, whether you think it's because God told you to, or you just subscribe to this community that just is like, all right, them's the rules. This is what we're doing. Like that rigidity, those rules can actually be great because they force the relaxation to be able to happen when otherwise you just would not be able to take the time to have a relaxing day, you know? Yeah. You see, you tell yourself, I'll take it easy today, and then you just find yourself casually checking your work email or whatever. But like, listen, if you put some rules on your life, you can relax even when you have good reason not to be relaxed. So Shabbat helps you do it anyway, and that's another reason it's so beneficial. That's wonderful. Love Shabbat. Great tie-ins.

SPEAKER_03 48:06

Good theme for this episode.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Thank you. I just wanted an excuse to talk about Shabbat. It's good. It's good stuff. This was fun. Thanks for joining me, Jay. And uh thanks for joining us, all of you listeners out there. If you'd like to get in touch with us, you can email us at jewgirlpodcast at gmail.com. And why don't you join us next week for when we will leave our blenders on Shabbat mode?

SPEAKER_03 48:34

Join us next week when we take some radioactive gems and put those inside the blender. That's on Shabbat mode.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Tune in next time when we come out as pro rock.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

A strong, strong pro rock stance. We our whole episode's changing. It's just rock from now on. All rocks, all the time, set to rock music.

SPEAKER_03 48:57

Join us next time when the B plot of the episode is about rocks.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Tune in next time when we will go clean up all the needles on the beach and put them in the fish toilet.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

Join us next time when Schmidt steps on a needle on the beach, but learns to give up control and doesn't feel like he has to rush to the hospital right away. Oh, Schmidt. Or Schmidt. Justice for Schmidt. Right, Robin?

SPEAKER_01 49:23

Justice for Schmidt. Always.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

Join us next time when we will we will join a jump circle, but not not on Shabbat. And we won't burn anyone.